This amazing product diversity positions Nucor uniquely to take advantage of strength in a variety of the market segments. As Dan mentioned, we see strength in advanced manufacturing and data centers supported by IRA and CHIPS infrastructure supported by the IIJA. We also see strength in healthcare, education and warehousing while down is still forecasted significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels. Our ability to offer this breadth of downstream products is unparalleled in the industry. These are secure, sustainable solutions for our customers and partners that continue to differentiate Nucor as the supplier of choice. We’re coming off a period of in ‘21 and ‘22 of extremely high demand. And while we see demand moderating back towards historical levels, it’s still quite strong.
And while volumes have moderated, our backlog remains very healthy, and pricing has stabilized at levels far higher than historical averages. In fact, Q4, industry-wide bookings in Joist and Deck were the highest in six quarters and 40% higher than Q4 of last year. So we’re optimistic, and we’re entering 24 with more market activity and momentum than we entered in 2023.
Curt Woodworth: Great. Thank you very much.
Leon Topalian: Thanks, Curt.
Operator: Our next question comes from Katja Jancic with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Katja Jancic: Hi, thank you for taking my question. At your Investor Day in 2022, you provided an EBITDA bridge that would get you to normalized EBITDA of about $6.7 billion. Can you provide an update on how you’re progressing on reaching that goal?
Leon Topalian: Yes. I’d actually been pleased to. So in November of 2022, we stood in New York and rolled out the most comprehensive detailed analysis that we’ve ever published before to show you as the analysts what we were going to do and the accountability by which we’re going to hold ourselves to that through-cycle EBITDA with the completion of our CapEx investments would yield about a $6.7 billion through-cycle EBITDA performance. I’d tell you at $7.4 million for the third best year in Nucor, we’re doing really well and that’s going to continue to improve because not all those projects have come to fruition yet. We’ve got galv lines being built, we’ve got our new micro mill being built in Lexington, North Carolina, we’ve got the investments in Kingman, Arizona that we’re making, where we’re expanding our resource pool and how we bring these products to market.
So I would tell you we’re doing incredibly well. And again, we will look back at times and look – coming out of the cycle, did we hit the trough? And what I would tell you is I’m really proud of our earnings. I’m proud of the way the team has been able to accomplish those. And then again, the results that we’ve been able to see, as we shared with you on the opening remarks, to generate $30 billion over the last 4 years, $20 billion in net earnings and 10% or $10 billion given back to our shareholders has been an incredible well disciplined growth strategy and that’s going to continue. We’re going to be very disciplined in how we think about capital allocation moving forward. Steve, anything you’d like to add on as we continue to grow and looking at that run rate of 6.7%?
Steve Laxton: Yes. Katja, just to add on to what Leon said, a lot of those projects are still ahead of us. If you look at some of the biggest ones in our company’s history like West Virginia, those are only in the early stages of their product life. So they haven’t even started to contribute. And in terms of our Expand Beyond investments, we told you that we felt confident those investments would hit $700 million in EBITDA. And we still – we would reaffirm that today and tell you we feel very confident we will hit 700 of their run rates at the end there. So there is still more to come on that. And likely unsaid, cycles go where they go, but we’re continuing to execute on our business on all fronts.
Katja Jancic: And maybe just quickly on the Brandenburg plate mill. How much do you expect the mill will produce in ‘24? I think previously you were expecting about 500,000 tons?
Al Behr: Yes, Katja, this is Al Behr. That’s still our number for 2024. I would expect to be there or north of it. I’m just super proud of that team on how they have worked through the ramp-up there. We continue to be focused on the new part of the market that we can’t service out of our existing portfolio, and we remain mindful of the returns we generate through there at Herbert and Tuscaloosa that contributed to the strong results you see in front of you, and we want to add to that out of Brandenburg. So we’re going to continue that thoughtful process, but Q4 was a meaningful productive quarter for that team. We continue to set new standards. We shipped another Nucor first of 120-foot long plates to a bridge fabricator, 30 tons a piece.
We ship them by truck and by rail. So these are the kinds of things that we will be able to do on a Brandenburg that’s never been done before by Nucor or perhaps the rest of the industry, and we’re just excited as we roll into this year. But that remains our number, and we’re confident in that.
Katja Jancic: Thank you.
Leon Topalian: Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Timna Tanners with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.
Timna Tanners: Yes. Hey, good morning, team. I wanted to ask a little bit more about capital allocation. I guess first off, the comment on lower cash balance. What do you think is the right level, because clearly, it’s been running kind of high recently? So just to get a little more color there? And secondly, you made mention of preserving liquidity for potential M&A and acquisition that you thought could and it didn’t. And here at an industry conference, there is a lot of chatter about Nucor’s supposed involvement in the acquisition process for U.S. Steel. Just wondering if you can comment on that or give us some more color perhaps on your M&A pipeline, what that might look like, what types of companies, etcetera?
Leon Topalian: Yes, Timna, I’ll kick it off and then let Steve. So I’ll begin with the second part of your question, which, again, obviously, the proxies have Nucor took a hard look at some of the select assets within the U.S. Steel portfolio. But at the end of the day, we’re not going to overpay for any assets. We’re going to continue to be very discipline and how we thing about growth. Some of the cash generated was just stronger results and stronger shipments and some pricing and flow through that we didn’t fully anticipate. But I would tell you again from my perspective, we continue to remain an incredibly undervalued stock as we think about the growth metrics that have already shared won’t repeat again, but at 7.5x EBITDA, I think we are a great value in terms of the things that we’re doing in producing.
In regards of who ends up owning U.S. fields assets, Nucor today’s market cap is larger than the next three largest combined steel companies in North America. We are the industry leader. And so again, as we look at our strategy and our growth we’re going to be incredibly disciplined in making sure that the investments we make in our core and expand beyond are delivering the results our shareholders expect. And then they expand beyond particularly that it’s providing some insulation to the traditional sickle county of steel that we’re looking for the steel adjacent downstream businesses that, again, operate a little countercyclical to what we’re seeing in steel and we’re seeing those, again, manifest themselves for CHI, the megatrends that we’re seeing in towers and structures and some of the other businesses that we’ve acquired over the last 3 or 4 years.
Steve Laxton: Hey, Timna, this is Steve. I’ll just add to what Leon said that we don’t – we have such a good opportunity in front of us. And you highlight us the areas that we think about growth. So we’re always going to keep enough liquidity to move on the things we need to move on. And we also highlighted that we will spend around $3.5 billion in CapEx in this year. So that’s a higher rate than our historic averages. Despite that, we will and we will – Leon highlighted this one, too. We still feel like our stock is a good buy here. So you’ll see us at a higher pace for share buybacks in Q1 than we did last year.
