Worthington Industries (WOR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Worthington Industries (WOR 0.23%)
Q4 2022 Earnings Call
Jun 23, 2022, 8:30 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Worthington Industries fourth quarter fiscal 2022 earnings conference call. [Operator instructions] This conference is being recorded at the request of Worthington Industries. If anyone objects, you may disconnect at this time. I'd now like to introduce Marcus Rogier, treasurer and investor relations officer.

Mr. Rogier, you may begin.

Marcus Rogier -- Treasurer and Investor Relations Officer

Thank you, Chris. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Worthington Industries fourth quarter fiscal 2022 earnings call. On our call today, we have Andy Rose, Worthington's president and chief executive officer, and Joe Hayek, Worthington's chief financial officer. Before we get started, I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made today are forward looking within the meaning of the 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.

These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those suggested. We issued our earnings release yesterday after the market close. Please refer to it for more detail on those factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. This call is being recorded and a replay will be made available later on our worthingtonindustries.com website.

This point, I will turn the call over to Joe for a discussion of the financial results.

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Marcus, and good morning, everyone. We finished our fiscal year with a very strong quarter reporting Q4 earnings of $1.61 a share versus $2.80 in the prior year. Excluding a small one-time restructuring gain, we generated $1.58 per share in the current quarter, compared to $2.33 in Q4 last year after adjusting for restructuring and a small gain on our investment in Nikola. In Q4, we had inventory holding losses estimated to be $42 million or $0.64 per share, compared to inventory holding gains of $51 million or $0.71 per share in the prior year, an unfavorable swing, $93 million, which is $1.35 per share.

Consolidated net sales in the quarter of $1.5 billion were up significantly, compared to $978 million in Q4 last year. The increase in sales primarily due to higher steel prices, the inclusion of our most recent acquisitions, and higher average selling prices in both consumer and building products. Gross profit for the quarter decreased to $168 million from $206 million in the prior year. Gross margin was 11% versus 23%, primarily due to the swing from inventory holding gains and losses, which were partially offset by margin increases in both consumer and building products.

Adjusted EBITDA in Q4 was $139 million, down from $186 million in Q4 of last year. And our adjusted EBITDA for fiscal 2022 was a record $615 million. Now I'll spend a few minutes on each of the business. In steel processing, net sales of $1.1 billion were up 71% from $655 million in Q4 of last year, primarily due to higher average selling prices and the inclusion of both Tempel Steel and Shiloh's BlankLight business in our results.

Total ship tons were down 5% compared to last year's fourth quarter despite those recent acquisitions, which contributed 97,000 tons during the quarter. Excluding the impact of the acquisitions, total ship tons were down 14% year over year, driven primarily by lower pooling volumes with the mills. Direct tons in Q4 were actually up slightly year over year, excluding acquisition and the facility we closed here in Alabama, and were 56% of the mix, compared to 48% in the prior year quarter. With the exception of the lower tolling volumes in our JVs, demand in the quarter was soft despite year-on-year increases in key end markets, including automotive, construction, and agriculture.

Automotive volume increased from the prior year quarter and remained below seasonal norms due to production constraints at the OEM, and it continues to be difficult to predict whether this dynamic will improve. Overall, demand across our end markets is steady and our teams are doing a very good job winning new business as they manage through volatile steel pricing markets and challenging supply chain. In Q4, steel generated adjusted EBIT of $17 million, compared to $98 million in the quarter last year. Large year-over-year decrease was driven by the inventory holding losses I mentioned earlier, estimated to be $42 million in this quarter, compared to gains of $51 million last year, an unfavorable swing of $93 million.

Fuel prices continue to be volatile and were rising at the beginning of the quarter, but then resumed falling later in the quarter. Based on current steel pricing, we do believe that we will see modest inventory holding gains in Q1. In consumer products, net sales in Q4 were $186 million, up 18% from $157 million in the prior year quarter. The increase was driven by higher average selling prices, partially offset by an unfavorable shift in product mix.

EBIT for the consumer business was a record $29 million and EBIT margin was 15.8% in Q4, compared to $19 million and 12.1% last year. Our consumer team continues to do a great job responding to increased demand and is invested in both people and equipment to increase production capacity to better serve our customers. In addition, we remain focused on growing the business through innovation, new product development, and acquisitions. Earlier this month, we announced the acquisition of Level5 Tools, a market leader, offering a complete lineup of drywall tools for both pros and do-it-yourselfers.

We welcome the Level5 team to Worthington. We're very excited about this acquisition as it expands our existing portfolio of specialty tools and provides us entry into attractive new markets. Building products generated net sales of $173 million in Q4, up 40% from $124 million in the prior year. The increase was driven by higher average selling prices and improved product mix.

Building products delivered record EBIT for the quarter of $64 million and EBIT margin was 36.8%, up from $41 million and 33.3% in Q4 of last year. Our wholly owned building products business continued to show solid growth, more than doubling their EBIT from the prior year and on a sequential basis due to continued strong demand and favorable mix combined with higher average selling presence. At our JVs, ClarkDietrich's results improved by $15 million year over year while WAVE was down $4 million year over year. WAVE's customers have been impacted by construction delays caused by labor availability and stretched supply chains for HVAC and other equipment.

But there are early indications that those issues are improving. ClarkDietrich and WAVE contributed equity earnings of $23 million and $21 million, respectively. Building products continues to do an excellent job serving their customers in the near term as they invest in new product development and production capacity. The business has a healthy order book and we are optimistic about demand going forward.

In Sustainable Energy Solutions, net sales in Q4 of $41 million were in-line with the prior year despite significantly lower volumes due to the divestiture at the end of Q4 last year of our LPG auto gas business going forward. Excluding the divestiture, net sales were up 20% in Q4 versus last year. The business reported an EBIT loss of $2 million in the quarter, compared to a profit of $4 million in the prior year quarter, roughly $800,000 of which was attributable to the domestic business. Higher average selling prices were more than offset by mix and the impact of significantly increased input costs.

Given the war in Ukraine and its impact on the European economy, input costs, freight costs, Sustainable Energy Solutions is likely to remain challenged in the near term. We are very excited about the long-term growth prospects for this business as we develop and optimize solutions that serve the rapidly expanding global hydrogen ecosystem and adjacent sustainable energy. With respect to cash flows and our balance sheet, cash flow from operations was $165 million in the quarter and free cash flow was $142 million. With strong lease of cash from operating working capital, primarily due to lower steel prices and reduced inventories, which added $77 million to cash flow.

For the full fiscal year, cash flow from operations was $70 million and free cash flow was an outflow of $24 million, the operating working capital increased by $258 million during the year, primarily a result of higher steel prices. We expect a substantial portion of that working capital build in fiscal 2022 will return to us in the form of cash flow in the coming quarters, assuming steel prices do not increase. In the quarter, we received $23 million in dividends from our unconsolidated JVs, invested $23 million on capital projects, paid $14 million in dividends, and spent $52 million to repurchase a million shares of our common stock. Following the Q4 purchases, we had slightly over 6 million shares remaining under our share repurchase authorization.

Looking at our balance sheet and liquidity position, funded debt at year end of $745 million decreased $68 million sequentially. Interest expense of $8 million was up slightly due to higher average debt level. During the quarter, we established an accounts receivable securitization facility that allows us to borrow up to $175 million at favorable short-term rates, further bolstering the company's already strong liquidity position. We ended Q4 with $34 million in cash and $632 million in availability under our revolving credit facilities.

We believe we are well positioned heading into the new fiscal year. Yesterday, the board declared a dividend of $0.31 per share for the quarter, which is an 11% increase over last quarter and is payable in September of 2022. This marks the 12th consecutive year we have increased our dividend and we are very pleased to be able to continue rewarding our shareholders as we deliver strong results. At this point, I will turn it over to Andy.

Andy Rose -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Joe, and good morning, everyone. What an amazing year it has been for our company and our employees. Record earnings per share of $7.30, record EBITDA of $615 million, General Motors Supplier of the Year, John Deere Supplier Hall of Fame for the second time, Best Places to Work in central Ohio, 10 years running. All of this in the face of a very tough operating environment filled with supply chain challenges, steel price volatility, and labor availability from lingering COVID challenges.

I cannot say enough good things about how our employees have gone above and beyond to take care of each other and deliver for our customers, all while staying focused on implementing our value drivers of transformation, acquisitions, and innovation. We added several new companies to our mix in fiscal '22 with the acquisitions of Shiloh's BlankLight business and Tempel Steel. With these, we have successfully positioned our steel processing segment to capitalize on the rapid growth expected from electric vehicles and the build out of the electrical grid. We can now offer broad -- our broad customer base, a full complement of laser, welding, lightweighting applications and electrical steel laminations for electric vehicle motors and transformers.

It is not often that you see products in the steel market that are expected to grow at double digit rates for the foreseeable future. Our consumer products business introduced a number of new products this past year and added the innovative drywall tool brand Level5 to its growing portfolio of tools. Today we have 10 unique brands in the tools, outdoor living, and celebration categories, and our pipeline of innovative new products continues to expand. In building products, we are benefiting from our focus on providing solutions that save time and labor for the new construction and renovation markets.

In Sustainable Energy Solutions, many of our products already offer cleaner fuel alternatives that can bridge us to a future dominated by wind, solar, hydrogen, and hydro electric. Overall, we are making strategic investments in propane, hydrogen, electric, and related areas to increase our exposure to markets where our products will play key roles in the energy transition. Our goal is to create sustainable products and business practices that are accretive to margins and free cash flow as these markets accelerate their growth. End market demand remains strong across most of our products and markets.

But operating challenges remain, including labor availability in some cities, continued intermittent supply chain disruptions, transportation shortages, and steel price volatility. Our commercial operations, purchasing, and supply chain teams have done an excellent job working together this year, overcoming constant curveballs and deserve much credit for our record success. We continue to be bullish on the future of all of our business segments as we refine and execute more dynamic growth strategies that will continue to leverage innovation, transformation, and M&A. In the near term, higher producer prices and consumer prices combined with higher interest rates, presents some risk to what otherwise would be a solid economic backdrop to start fiscal 2023.

I am in my 14th year at Worthington Industries and fiscal '22 is without question the most impressive performance I have been fortunate enough to be a part of. In the face of numerous challenges, our people went above and beyond to deliver for our customers while achieving record financial results. Every business unit is working hard, smart, and performing at very high levels. To all of our stakeholders, congratulations and thank you for your loyalty.

We'll now take questions.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

[Operator instructions] Our first question today is from Martin Englert with Seaport Research Partners. Your line is open.

Martin Englert -- Seaport Research Partners -- Analyst

Hi. Good morning, everyone.

Andy Rose -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Martin.

Martin Englert -- Seaport Research Partners -- Analyst

Across the cylinder segment, ASPs improved sequentially and higher pricing was called out in the prepared remarks as well as the release. To the extent that this was pricing versus mix, can you discuss the typical duration that you priced the products versus, I guess, how often does it typically change here?

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. So, Martin, it's not cylinders anymore. Obviously, it's building products and consumer products. But in both of those businesses, we mentioned during Q2 and Q3 conversations that the ability and the pricing contracts in those things sometimes lag when you see inflation.

And so we were able to in late Q2 and a couple of cases, but largely in in Q3 we were able to kind of catch up, if you will, to where our costs were and finally be able to reset some of those contracts. And so in building products, a lot of those are kind of renew and go forward on a more short term basis but some of them are also annual. But again, we don't really think about it as higher pricing carrying the day. We honestly think about it as the products that we have which we were able to price more appropriately given our input costs after we got into kind of calendar 2023.

But Andy mentioned it, these are products that are -- that save people time, right. Our foam and adhesive products, when you're putting up a roof or putting down a floor, rather than nailing things into the ground or into different studs, you save a ton of time. And our smart lid technology in building products really saves time for propane distributors and everything else. And so in this market where labor is at a premium, both in availability and in cost, we really think about it as the ROI for those products becomes even more visible for our customers and then the end user customers.

And that's driving a lot of what we're seeing.

Martin Englert -- Seaport Research Partners -- Analyst

Thank you for that. That's helpful. Within steel processing, holding losses were $42 million for the quarter. I guess, can you -- you alluded to, I think, a modest positive gain near term, I guess.

How would you define modest?

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

It means significantly less than the losses we had this quarter.

Martin Englert -- Seaport Research Partners -- Analyst

I guess I interpret it as you would expect to gain on the current quarter. Did I misinterpret that?

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

No. Sorry. Yes. The size of the gain in this quarter will be a lower number, obviously, than the size of the loss.

But yeah, you're right, it'll be a modest gain for the quarter and that's really all the visibility we typically have. At the same time, the bias for steel pricing generally has returned to being that curve sloping downward, as you know.

Martin Englert -- Seaport Research Partners -- Analyst

OK. And I guess pulling out the inventory, holding gains and losses and looking at steel prices EBITDA per ton, I think, was about $73 in the current quarter, which was comparable to first quarter, I believe, ex gains and losses. But it's elevated, I guess I kind of think of this through a cycle of around $50 a ton. I know your mix changed a bit with direct versus holding, but I'm curious that $73 per ton underlying, is that something that sustains near term or was this just the near term mix or pricing or something that dissipates?

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I think -- it's a great question and there's -- as you know, there are a lot of puts and takes in there. I think the business, excluding FIFO, ran at about a 6% EBITDA margin for 2022. And that's -- I would say that's historically normal.

Martin Englert -- Seaport Research Partners -- Analyst

OK. So more so your opinion on, I mean, on the percentage basis kind of when you're looking at things as [Inaudible]

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I mean, we -- go ahead.

Martin Englert -- Seaport Research Partners -- Analyst

Sorry. Go ahead.

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

So I was just saying we did -- there are -- we have a gross out material. We have other things that are happening and there clearly is going to be some noise if steel prices are very, very volatile. But I think that is the way that we think about it in a normalized environment.

Martin Englert -- Seaport Research Partners -- Analyst

I guess coming back to the dollars per ton. I'm not wrong in thinking. I mean, you're thinking about it on a percentage basis, but I'm not necessarily wrong in thinking about it at a kind of mean reverts to first cycle over time, right?

Andy Rose -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Martin, this is Andy. I would say it's unclear. We've been through kind of an interesting couple of years here with respect to steel availability, steel price volatility. And so a lot of what's happened in the marketplace is, I think, people like us and our competitors have tried to recapture some of the costs, increased freight costs, increased labor costs.

And I think that's reflected in the higher margins today. Whether that reverts back, I think is a little bit unclear at this point. In many markets, that's the case. But there's also been a lot of consolidation in the mill space.

So I think that is helping support higher prices and higher margins as well. So the backdrop right now is solid, and we'll see where it goes from here.

Martin Englert -- Seaport Research Partners -- Analyst

Thanks. That's helpful. And if I could, one last one here. Could you provide an update on the Tempel integration, how that's progressing? And then maybe a brief update on Sustainable Energy Solutions.

I know you've commented that there has been some headwinds in the European market and that's probably going to remain a challenge. But I guess when we think about what's the time horizon potentially look like before that would turn positive?

Andy Rose -- President and Chief Executive Officer

So first question. Tempel, the integration has been going very well. We are actually wrapping up kind of a revisit of kind of the strategy for that business, not because they didn't have a good strategy. They did.

But I would tell you that one of the things that they faced prior to us owning them was capital constraints. And so we don't obviously have that. And so that market is growing rapidly, it's growing globally. And so the question that we're trying to answer is where are we going to invest to get the highest rates of return and be able to serve our customers on a global basis? So I would say we're probably as excited or more excited than we were when we acquired the business.

The team is fantastic there. They continue to be very engaged. They've integrated very well into Worthington where it makes sense. We're not trying to smother them, but we're trying to give them access to our resources where that makes sense and they've taken advantage of that.

So it's -- so far it's been a a great partnership and integration process and we look forward to kind of where it goes from here. On Sustainable Energy Solutions, you are correct. That business is European centric right now. We have made some investments to expand our capabilities in and around the hydrogen space there but the core of that business is being impacted by the European economy, the war in Ukraine.

And so short term, it's faced some headwinds. We still are very optimistic about the long-term prospects of that business. And we don't like businesses that don't make money. So we're working hard to try and get it back to profitability sooner rather than later.

But time will tell exactly how long it is before demand comes back there.

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. And it's -- I know, there -- we have people in Europe and we feel for them because the situation is what it is. But it's hard to underestimate how disrupted the European economy and European freight and European supply chains and the availability in coordination as you're trying to ship things from various places to and from Europe had been and how disrupted they are. And so some of that will depend on the geopolitical situation but Andy's right.

It's -- that's a great business for us. Longer term, it's going to face some headwinds certainly for the next couple of quarters.

Andy Rose -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. The one thing I'll say that is a positive for the products that they make is what's happening with energy in Europe is -- has obviously made them rethink their supply sources. And they're looking for alternatives and transitioning away from dependance on Russian oil and natural gas. And so that is actually driving a lot of activity in that business but it doesn't necessarily mean it shows up in a quarter.

Martin Englert -- Seaport Research Partners -- Analyst

Yeah, that's more of a longer -- medium, longer term shift, but it's great to see it pivoting the other direction here. So thank you for all your time. Congratulations on the results, not only for the quarter, but for the year in navigating a challenging environment.

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Martin.

Operator

The next question is from Phil Gibbs with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Phil Gibbs -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Hey, good morning.

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Phil.

Phil Gibbs -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

When does the inventory gains and holding loss' seasickness, I guess, abate? You had a big loss here. You got a modest gain next quarter. The train roll has rolled down the tracks, down $500 on hot rolled in the last two months. Does that show up in Q2? Is that persistent in Q3? Where do we need to level out, I guess, for this to ease? Because your massive swings within swings and I think you can join me in saying that you've never seen this before.

So we haven't either. We're trying to figure this out.

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

Well, I mean, it's certainly a good question. I don't have a great answer with a lot of specificity in it. I mean what you're seeing this quarter is actually what we talked about. On the giant swing, the gains next quarter are more kind of an echo, right, from when steel prices post Russia's invasion of Ukraine bounced back up to $1,500 but then they've kind of resumed their their downward bias.

And so if you kind of look out into the future. Once we get through the curve ultimately flattening, there's always a lag effect for our inventory holding gains or losses. But the market would appear right now to be relatively flat if he was looking at the forward curve. He's kind of starting in on August, September into next year.

Whether that holds or not remains to be seen. But we're clearly doing everything that we can to optimize our inventory positions at all times but to a certain extent, the forward curve is going to do what it does without kind of regard for what we think or want.

Phil Gibbs -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

And just generally on the macro side, on nonresidential construction, you've obviously got some leading indicators or some thoughts on orders at Dietrich and in WAVE, and that's a mix between new and MRO. And you've got some vision in some of your cylinders portfolio. So what's the latest in terms of the Mosaic nonresidential construction side with the rising rate and softening housing price environment?

Andy Rose -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I mean, it's a little unclear. I think there are obviously some flashing yellow lights there just in terms of construction costs generally, as well as rising interest rates, which will change the economics of some of those projects. I will tell you, we don't have an economics department here at Worthington that sort of does deep dives, but one of our JV partners does, Armstrong.

And their outlook right now is kind of just slightly up year over year. Obviously, that's subject to change as additional economic data points come in, but there's a lot of puts and takes in commercial construction. It's not just office buildings and so I think there are -- there is demand for other types of buildings, particularly around medical, the healthcare field, that is offsetting what you might expect would be some of the decline. So we're cautiously optimistic that things hold up.

Phil Gibbs -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

And then on the capex side, you've got you Tempel. I think you're talking about putting in more processing capability there to augment that portfolio. But what are you thinking about in terms of -- I know it's a little early, but fiscal -- well, I guess it isn't really any more, fiscal '23 capex.

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

We were right. We did $94 million for the year. We think it'll be up modestly in the 10% to 20% year over year. We do have the inclusion of Tempel.

We honestly probably would have spent more in 2022, but for supply chain and other delays and being able to complete projects, and so the -- our level of spend to -- certain to a large degree but on the margins is going to be going to subject to availability of products and us not being able to get that money deployed in the way and on the timeline that we want. We've got some really cool growth-oriented projects that we're excited about. In a continuation of the theme, it's not really the cylinders business anymore, right? It's consumer products and building products. But in both of those businesses, the trends that you saw beginning with COVID are inherent to any recession that you go into in that you're not spending money on airplanes or on a cruise ship.

You're going to do more at home. You might go camping, you're going to work around your house. Then on the building products side, a lot of those products are ultimately labor savings oriented and driven. And so to Andy's point, we are cautiously optimistic, but we feel like if there was a consumer-led recession or something like that, that our -- we won't be immune to that, but that a lot of the places that we play are going to be a bit more insulated than some of the others that are out there.

Phil Gibbs -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

No, that makes sense all-in. And last one for me is just on the auto side. The semi constraints have been a big talking point for the last several months and counting. What are your customers telling you now in terms of any of that dawn breaking perhaps as the year progresses for 2023? Thanks.

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

It's probably more a 2023 phenomenon at this point. You look at inventory on dealer lot, days. All of those metrics are at historic lows and it doesn't -- you can still drive past a car dealership and the parking lot is fairly empty. And so things are steady, but things have not begun to hockey stick back.

When all of this happens, depending on the economic environment, they'll clearly have some catch up to kind of fill those channels. But it is very difficult to predict when that will start and how rapid it will be.

Phil Gibbs -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

Thank you.

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

Sure.

Operator

The next question is from John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Your line is open.

John Tumazos -- John Tumazos Very Independent Research -- Analyst

Could you tell us a little bit about the drywall tools acquisition? The EBITDA multiple you paid, the synergies it might have, presumably this goes in the construction segment?

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

So sure, John. The Level5, well, it actually goes into construction segment, but it's embedded in our consumer products business. Very excited about that business grown from the ground up by the founder and CEO, real reputation for innovation or a cutting-edge improvement in tools. I don't know how much you know about the drywall business, but there are varying types and steps you go through in drywall, and that requires for optimal production and productivity, different types of flex points, different angles, and different types of tools.

Those guys really cracked the code, have been able to take share everywhere they've gone. We paid a little north of 10 times on the EBITDA side. We are 100% excited about it because of the breadth of our consumer offerings into big box retailers and into the stores, where they are. They also sell a bunch of direct to consumer.

So there's going to be learning both ways for us. We are -- their CEO and team is the staying and committed to the business, but we really feel like as a part of our DTI platform in consumer products, we're going to be able to do great things for them from an access perspective. And as more people either do-it-yourselfers or pros see and understand what those products do, we think they'll be able to take share. And it also gives an entree into an entirely new sub-segment in that specialty tools business.

And we're excited about what's possible there, too.

Andy Rose -- President and Chief Executive Officer

John, just -- this is one of the most exciting things going on at Worthington right now is in our consumer products space. We have developed very strong capability of taking either under managed brands and reinvigorating them and then driving them into our broad network of customers or in this case taking an emerging brand, which has a lot more penetration before it becomes mature and really helping take the business to the next level. So as we go forward, you're going to see a lot more hopefully of these types of either new products introduced from within Worthington or new products that we acquire and really help accelerate their growth. That's a big strategy for us.

We've got an excellent team that is really developed and a great capability there. So we're excited about the prospects of this business.

John Tumazos -- John Tumazos Very Independent Research -- Analyst

So because we look at this is in the consumer segment then is revenues and EBITDA. As we look to the current year, '23, over $300 million went into working capital last year. Is any of that money going to come out or should we expect the working capital dollars, excluding cash, and debt to be about the same as the year end?

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

So yeah, John, $250 million went into working capital during 2022. So we do expect a fair amount of that to come back to us in the form of cash flow unless steel prices go up again.

John Tumazos -- John Tumazos Very Independent Research -- Analyst

Of course, the cash balances fell and you've got a little bit of short term debt. Does that mean there's going to be a pause in acquisitions? The dollars were very big last year, $384 million, $130 million in 2021. I guess 2018 was $285 million but 2017 there weren't any acquisitions. 2019 it was $10 million, 2020 is $31 million.

I'm just wondering whether we're borrowing or not.

Andy Rose -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, obviously, if you look at our leverage level based on trailing EBITDA, we're pretty low leverage. I don't know what the exact math is, but 1.2 or three times EBITDA, we have a lot of available credit. And as you were just talking with Joe, I wouldn't say we have a stash of cash in working capital that we expect to get back. So short of steel prices reversing course and starting to go back up.

The other thing I would tell you is I'm not rooting for a recession by any means, but when you see slowdowns in certain markets, you've already seen, obviously, a big blow up in terms of a lot of the new economy stocks. But you're starting to see valuations come down, I think, in other markets, too. And that's when we start to lick our chops a little bit and get excited about potentially being even more active. I mean, you got to find the right companies.

You got to strike the right balance of price and you need a willing seller. So but I think for us, we're continuing to be active and look. The last couple of years, it's been tough because valuations got really high for even basic companies. And not only were valuations high, but particularly in some of the markets that we're in, they -- these companies have tripled earnings over three years.

So when you combine high multiples with earnings that have tripled over three years, you get pretty nervous in a hurry. So some of that's reversing course. And hopefully they'll be more good businesses out there for us to buy at reasonable prices. But we paid ten times for Level5, so we're not afraid to start paying up for really good businesses.

John Tumazos -- John Tumazos Very Independent Research -- Analyst

So in two years you've spent about $570 million in acquisitions. Is there a nervousness that that's a lot of organizational change and businesses you've got to manage and sometimes you earn more after you own them than before. So is there a little bit of caution, given how much you've spent, how quickly?

Andy Rose -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I don't know if it's so much the dollars, John. It's more how many businesses have we bought and how much integration is there? One of the things that has changed for us over the past several years is the way we're integrating businesses. And the short answer is, in a lot of cases we used to pursue full integration, which pick a function. We were integrating it fully into Worthington.

We're not doing that necessarily as much anymore, and that's a very conscious decision on our part, partly because we want these businesses to preserve their own growth strategies. And we don't want to meddle, if you will, in terms of their path to success because they're already good businesses and doing well. But I think also that sometimes when you do full integration, it's -- you necessarily aren't accomplishing what you're trying to accomplish with the business. So I think it's not quite a concern at this point.

But at some point, if you do too many acquisitions, it can become a burden to people managing them but we're very cognizant of that. I think that's a lesson learned from kind of our our past wave of M&A that we didn't do too much too fast in too many places and it got away from us. And now I think we're much more focused and our process is much tighter.

John Tumazos -- John Tumazos Very Independent Research -- Analyst

Thank you.

Andy Rose -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

[Operator instructions] And it appears that we have no further questions. I'll turn it over to the presenters for any closing remarks.

Andy Rose -- President and Chief Executive Officer

All right. Well, congratulations again to all of our stakeholders and special thanks to our employees for a fantastic year. Everybody have a great summer and we'll look forward to talking to you in September.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 0 minutes

Call participants:

Marcus Rogier -- Treasurer and Investor Relations Officer

Joe Hayek -- Chief Financial Officer

Andy Rose -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Martin Englert -- Seaport Research Partners -- Analyst

Phil Gibbs -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst

John Tumazos -- John Tumazos Very Independent Research -- Analyst

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