Anne Lloyd to retire as $MLM's EVP and CFO, effective mid-August, 2017. The company's BoD has identified James Nickolas as Lloyd's successor, effective in mid-August. He will serve as SVP and CFO and will report to Howard Nye, Chairman, President and CEO of the company. Lloyd will remain with $MLM through Sept. 2017 to ensure a smooth transition.
$MLM's floating rate senior notes due 2020 will mature on May 22, 2020 and the fixed rate senior notes due 2027 will mature on June 1, 2027. Interest for floating rate notes will be paid quarterly in arrears on February 22, May 22, August 22 and November 22. Interest for fixed rate notes will be paid semiannually on June 1 and December 1.
$MLM has priced its offering of $300MM aggregate principal amount of floating rate senior notes due 2020 and $300MM aggregate principal amount of senior notes due 2027. The net proceeds will be used to refinance its existing floating rate notes and to repay debts outstanding. Closing of the offering is expected to occur on May 22, 2017.
In 1Q17, net sales for $MLM’s Building Materials business were $728.4MM, up 8% from 1Q16, driven by pricing gains in aggregates, cement and ready mixed concrete. Net sales for the Magnesia Specialties business were $63.3MM, an increase of 6.4%, with growth in both the chemicals and lime product lines.
For 2017, $MLM expects consolidated net sales to be $3.75-3.95Bil and gross profit to be $1-1.1Bil. Capex is expected to be $400-500MM. Net sales for the Building Materials business is expected to be $2.2-2.3Bil while net sales for the Magnesia Specialties business is expected to be $235-240MM.
$MLM's BoD declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.42 per share on its common stock. This dividend, which represents a cash dividend of $1.68 per share on an annualized basis, is payable on March 31, 2017, to shareholders of record on March 6, 2017.
For 2017, $MLM expects aggregates product line infrastructure shipments to increase in the mid-single digits. Non-residential volumes are expected to increase in the low-to-mid single digits. Residential shipments are expected to increase in the mid-to-high single digits. $MLM expects aggregates product line shipments to increase 4.0-5.5%.
$MLM expects strong underlying demand indicators for its products across its geographic footprint. Infrastructure growth to be bolstered as funding from the $305Bil Fixing America Surface Transportation (FAST) Act begins to meaningfully impact public construction projects in 2017 and beyond.
$MLM is confident in seeing a broad concerted industry and user-driven effort to develop and implement a new and creative federal transportation tax and revenue reform and investment package in 2017. The U.S. needs to at least double the federal government's current annual infrastructure investment of approx. $40Bil, $MLM said.
Looking at the big projects, $MLM said several of them started late in Sept., some more started in Oct. Based on its conversations with the Texas DoT, looking into 2017, a pretty uniform distribution of these projects will be happening throughout the various quarters of next year.
