Description of the Business and Significant Accounting Policies

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2012

Description of the Business and Significant Accounting Policies

Description of the Business and Significant Accounting Policies

Note 1.  Description of the Business and Significant Accounting Policies

Description of the Business

Steel Dynamics, Inc. (SDI), together with its subsidiaries (the company), is a domestic manufacturer of steel products and metals recycler. The company has three reporting segments: steel operations, metals recycling and ferrous resources operations, and steel fabrication operations.

Steel Operations.  Steel operations include the company’s Flat Roll Division, Structural and Rail Division, Engineered Bar Products Division, Roanoke Bar Division, Steel of West Virginia (SWVA) and The Techs operations. These operations consist of mini-mills, producing steel from steel scrap, using electric arc furnaces, continuous casting, automated rolling mills, and downstream finishing facilities. The company’s steel operations sell directly to end users and service centers. These products are used in numerous industry sectors, including the automotive, construction, commercial, transportation and industrial machinery markets. Steel operations accounted for approximately 60% and 59% of the company’s external net sales during the three-month periods ended March 31, 2012 and 2011, respectively.

Metals Recycling and Ferrous Resources Operations. Metals recycling and ferrous resources operations include OmniSource Corporation (OmniSource), the company’s metals recycling, steel scrap procurement, and processing locations, and our two ironmaking initiatives: Iron Dynamics (IDI), a liquid pig iron production facility; and our Minnesota iron operations, an iron nugget production facility and planned operations to supply the nugget facility with its primary raw material, iron concentrate. Metals recycling and ferrous resources operations accounted for approximately 35% and 37% of the company’s external net sales during each of the three-month periods ended March 31, 2012 and 2011, respectively.

Steel Fabrication Operations.  Steel fabrication operations include the company’s New Millennium Building Systems plants located throughout the United States and Northern Mexico. Revenues from these plants are generated from the fabrication of trusses, girders, steel joists and steel decking used within the non-residential construction industry. Steel fabrication operations accounted for approximately 4% and 3% of the company’s external net sales during the three-month periods ended March 31, 2012 and 2011, respectively.

Significant Accounting Policies

Principles of Consolidation. The consolidated financial statements include the accounts of SDI, together with its wholly and majority-owned or controlled subsidiaries, after elimination of significant intercompany accounts and transactions.  Noncontrolling interests represent the noncontrolling owner’s proportionate share in the equity, income, or losses of the company’s majority-owned or controlled consolidated subsidiaries.

Use of Estimates. These financial statements are prepared in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States and, accordingly, include amounts that require management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the financial statements and in the notes thereto.  Significant items subject to such estimates and assumptions include the carrying value of property, plant and equipment, intangible assets and goodwill; valuation allowances for trade receivables, inventories and deferred income tax assets; income taxes; unrecognized income tax benefits; potential environmental liabilities; and litigation claims and settlements. Actual results may differ from these estimates and assumptions.

In the opinion of management, these financial statements reflect all normal recurring adjustments necessary for a fair presentation of the interim period results. These financial statements and notes should be read in conjunction with the audited financial statements and notes thereto included in the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011.

Goodwill.  The company’s goodwill is allocated to the following reporting units at March, 2012, and December 31, 2011, (in thousands):

	March 31,		December 31,
	2012		2011
OmniSource — Metals Recycling/Ferrous Resources Segment	$	569,692	$	571,317
The Techs — Steel Segment	142,783		142,783
Roanoke Bar Division — Steel Segment	29,041		29,041
New Millennium Building Systems — Fabrication Segment	1,925		1,925
	$	743,441	$	745,066

OmniSource goodwill decreased $1.6 million from December 31, 2011 to March 31, 2012, in recognition of the 2012 tax benefit related to the amortization of the component of OmniSource tax-deductible goodwill in excess of book goodwill.