Ryerson-Olympic Steel Merge Creates No.2 North American Metals Service-Center; to Trade as RYZ

Midwest Metals Tie-up Creates New Service-Center Giant

CHICAGO/CLEVELAND, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Ryerson Holding Corp and Olympic Steel complete their merger, creating the second-largest metals service center in North America and combining complementary footprints, capabilities and product offerings. Ryerson issues 1.7105 shares of its common stock for each Olympic Steel share, leaving former Olympic shareholders with about 37% of the combined company. The deal unites Olympic’s regional service-center network with Ryerson’s intelligently interconnected platform of value-added processing centers.

The combined company is pursuing about $120 million in annual synergies by early 2028, driven by procurement savings, greater scale and efficiency, commercial portfolio enhancements and footprint optimization. Ryerson says it will report quarterly on progress toward realizing those savings and aims to standardize processes across the enlarged network to accelerate order cycle times and improve service consistency for industrial customers. Management frames the integration as a way to broaden inventory selection while preserving localized value-added capabilities.

Operationally, the merged platform targets faster speed to market and improved earnings quality through cross-network logistics, centralized buying and optimized facility roles. Ryerson is aligning processing and distribution assets to reduce duplicative capacity, enhance product breadth for sectors such as energy, automotive, construction and manufacturing, and increase the proportion of higher-margin value-added work. The company emphasizes execution of footprint and commercial rationalization as key near-term priorities.

Leadership and structure

Eddie Lehner remains chief executive officer and Richard T. Marabito, former Olympic Steel CEO, becomes president and chief operating officer as the companies integrate operations. Jim Claussen continues as executive vice president and chief financial officer; Richard A. Manson, formerly Olympic Steel’s CFO, is senior vice president of finance and will lead transition and synergy efforts. Andrew Greiff is executive vice president — Ryerson and president — Olympic Steel; Mark Silver becomes executive vice president, chief legal and risk officer; Molly Kannan remains corporate controller and chief accounting officer. The combined company will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker RYZ on Feb. 24.

Customer focus and reporting

Ryerson stresses that the transaction is oriented toward operational and commercial improvements rather than financial engineering, promising more consistent value-added experiences across its service centers and quarterly transparency on synergy attainment. The integration plan prioritizes customer-facing capabilities and inventory availability to strengthen the company’s competitive position in the U.S. metals service-center industry.