Cleveland-Cliffs Q4 Prelim. Revenue Slips, Proposes $750 Mln Senior Notes

(RTTNews) - Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (CLF), a steel maker, on Monday reported a decline in preliminary revenue for the fourth quarter due to muted demand. The company expects new steel tariffs to benefit in 2025.

Lourenco Goncalves, CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs, said: "Other than the Covid-impacted 2020, 2024 was the worst year for domestic steel demand since 2010. As the largest supplier to the automotive industry in North America, we were especially impacted by muted demand from this sector in the second half of the year. This was the primary driver of our weaker results, particularly in the fourth quarter, which we expect to be the trough as we look forward."

For the fourth quarter to December 31, 2024, the company posted revenue of around $4.3 billion, lower than $5.112 billion registered for the same period last year. Analysts, on average, forecast the firm to generate revenue of $4.44 billion, for the quarter.

Adjusted EBITDA loss is projected to be $85 million, compared with a profit of $279 million a year ago.

For the full year, steel shipments were 15.6 million net tons, down from last year's 16.4 million net tons.

Cleveland-Cliffs projects annual adjusted EBITDA of $775 million, lesser than $1.911 billion in 2023.

For the full year, the steel manufacturer anticipates revenue of $19.2 billion, compared with the prior year's $22 billion. Analysts, on average, forecast the firm to post revenue of $19.27 billion, for the year.

In addition, the company said that it intends to sell $750 million aggregate principal amount of senior guaranteed notes, due 2031. The notes will be guaranteed on a senior unsecured basis by Cliffs' material direct and indirect wholly-owned domestic subsidiaries.

The steelmaker intends to use the net proceeds from the notes for general corporate purposes, including the repayment of debt.

Looking ahead, Cleveland-Cliffs expects that the manufacturing-friendly items on President Donald Trump's agenda could have an outsized benefit on the company. This includes the recently announced tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China and the expectation that there is more to come on steel specifically.

CLF was down by 3.52 percent at $9.88 in the pre-market trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company will release its annual earnings report on February 24.