ATI ends year with Q4 loss of $1.1B
Allegheny Technologies Inc. said Thursday it lost $1.1 billion, or $8.85 per share, in the fourth quarter as the Pittsburgh-based metals giant struggled to regain its footing amid a major restructuring and weak demand for its products.
The huge loss — which included $1.1 billion in restructuring and other charges — compared with earnings of $56.5 million, or 41 cents per share, in the final quarter of 2019.
Excluding special charges, the company posted an adjusted quarterly loss of $41.9 million, or 33 cents a share.
Fourth-quarter sales plunged to $658.3 million, down from $1 billion in the year-ago period.
“We are optimistic that the worst is behind us and demand will begin to rebound as COVID19 vaccines are increasingly approved and administered around the world,” CEO Robert S. Wetherbee said in a statement.
The current quarter also is expected to be slow, “driven by the COVID-19 resurgence and the relatively low rates of global air passenger travel,” he said.
But Mr. Wetherbee said he expects demand to pick up in the second half of the year, led by increased production of narrowbody jet engines.
The company is projecting an adjusted loss in the first quarter of between 23 cents and 30 cents per share.
ATI announced a sweeping restructuring at the end of 2020 that includes exiting the low-margin standard stainless sheet product line to focus on more profitable advanced alloys products for aerospace and defense markets.
The impact was felt locally in Brackenridge, where the firm closed a portion of its finishing operations, and in Vandergrift, where ATI is making a multimillion-dollar investment to upgrade the facility to switch entirely to finishing specialty products.
For all of 2020, ATI reported a loss of $1.6 billion, or $12.43 per share. That compares to profits of $257.6 million, or $1.85, in 2019.
Revenue for the year was $3 billion, down from $4.1 billion.
“In the fourth quarter, we took decisive action to accelerate our future by exiting the lowmargin standard stainless sheet product line,” Mr. Wetherbee said. “The transformation represents a major step forward to making ATI a more sustainably profitable aerospace and defense-focused company.”