In March 2013, Mario Longhi lobbed an unexpected question into a roomful of 150 U.S. Steel Corp. managers: Who here would buy the company’s stock, tomorrow?
He gave them three seconds, and "only a few reacted in that time frame positively," Longhi said.
Since that meeting, Longhi has been promoted to chief executive, and nine months into his tenure he’s closed one plant permanently, two more are temporarily idled and he’s planning to overhaul another. It’s all part of his plan to transform the 144-year-old company into a lean, modern steel producer. Investors are taking note, with the shares up 53 percent since he took over.
Once a major presence in Utah, with its Geneva plant on the shores of Utah Lake, U.S. Steel’s strategy for more than a century was based on volume — make lots of steel, maximize production to minimize costs. Now he’s pushing the idea that getting smaller will help it survive.
"The magnitude of the change that needs to happen is not small," Longhi said in a June interview. "It’s a lot of hard lifting."
Longhi, born and educated in Brazil, began an improvement program he’s calling "The Carnegie Way," named for co-founder Andrew Carnegie. Instead of riding the peaks and troughs of global commodity markets, Longhi’s goal is for U.S. Steel to consistently turn a profit.
He’s announced $700 million of cash savings this year, through measures including reducing working capital and another $290 million through improving manufacturing processes and supply chains, and may offer more details on July 29 when the Pittsburgh-based company reports its second-quarter results. It’s expected to report a loss of $60.3 million, according to the average of five analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg
He faces a stiff challenge. The company has posted five years of losses and was ejected from the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index this month after its market value shrank to 4.3 billion in 2013 from 8.4 billion in 2010. One of his favorite props to show employees the hurdles they face is a 10-year stock chart. The shares averaged about $37 in 2004 and reached a high of more than $191 in 2008, just before the financial crisis. This year it’s averaged about $26.
"I took that chart everywhere," said Longhi, 60.
U.S. Steel’s problems go beyond the steel market. The company was once the world’s biggest producer — it’s now ranked 13th. Slowing growth and rising steel output in China, plus a limping recovery in the U.S., have attracted imports, which now account for a quarter of the domestic market.
Source:sltrib.com
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