Specialty steel maker Universal Stainless & Alloy Products Inc. said Thursday that weak customer demand is hurting its revenue and the company doesn’t expect a recovery until 2013.
CEO Dennis Oates said that its post-Labor Day supply chain demand hasn’t stabilized as much as the company had hoped.
The company said that it now expects that its order entry for September will be roughly equal to the orders levels it has seen over the past few months. Based on this trend and some normal year-end seasonality, Universal expects its quarterly revenues to remain under pressure. The company expects it will be the first quarter of 2013 before it sees a rebound.
“While we continue to execute our growth strategy company-wide, it is prudent to assume that the benefits of our initiatives to both sales and profitability will not be reflected in our performance until next year,” Oates said.
Universal’s products are used in a variety of industries, including aerospace, power generation, petrochemical and heavy equipment manufacturing.
Shares of the company fell $2.13, or 5.5 percent, to $36.40 by midmorning on the news, although trading was very light. The stock is down nearly 24 percent since May when it hit a year-long peak of $48.10.