Mueller Industries reports steady earnings in 2019

Collierville, Tennessee-based red metals products maker Mueller Industries Inc. has announced a fiscal year 2019 net income figure of $101 million, down about 3.3 percent from its 2018 net income of $104.5 million.

The company, with a 2019 fiscal year that ended Dec. 29, 2019, also has reported slightly reduced net sales in its 2019 results--$2.4 billion compared with $2.5 billion in 2018.

In the firm’s 2019 fourth quarter, its $44.4 million net income is an 11 percent improvement over the $40 million earned in the fourth quarter of 2018. The firm achieved that quarterly income growth despite a net sales figure that was 2.7 percent lower in the fourth quarter of 2019 compared with Q4 2018.

“Our diverse portfolio of businesses proved to be a strength as we delivered another year of double-digit operating income growth,” comments Greg Christopher, CEO of the firm. “Prudent capital deployment and laser-focused execution are core operating principles and drivers of our strong cash generation.”

The company has calculated that “the average price of copper was 7.2 percent lower [in 2019] compared with the prior year, averaging $2.72 per pound.” Adds the firm, “Net sales declined 3.1 percent as compared with the prior year, primarily as a result of both lower copper prices and lower shipments in our Industrial Metals segment.”

Looking ahead to Mueller Industries’ prospects in 2020, Christopher adds, “Our outlook for 2020 remains positive despite softening of the industrial markets, which we experienced during the fourth quarter. Our Piping Systems and Climate businesses benefit from building construction, one of the principal market sectors in which we operate. The fundamentals of the construction sector remain solid, and the economies we operate in are healthy or improving.”

Mueller Industries divides its 23 subsidiary companies into four business segments, one of which is Industrial Metals. That segment contains six companies, including copper and brass producer Mueller Brass, a buyer of red metal scrap with two facilities in Michigan.

The company is not related to Atlanta-based Mueller Water Products, which in mid-2019 announced it will build a new brass foundry in Decatur, Illinois. That foundry is expected to employ about 250 people and will be, according to Mueller Water Products, “one of the largest state-of-the-art, finished goods brass foundries in the world.”