New Nucor CEO Starts Tenure in Time of Crisis

Six months of adversity was not what Leon Topalian expected when he took over the reigns of Nucor in January. But a pandemic that devastated the economy, caused demand and pricing to plummet and put the very lives of employees in jeopardy was a formidable challenge to overcome.

“I’m not sure I’ve seen before in 25 years, 20 million tons of capacity removed by integrated producers in such a rapid way,” said Topalian during the SMU Steel Summit last week. As an electric arc producer, Nucor fared better than most during the height of the crisis. Fifty percent of Nucor’s product mix is in construction, which proved resilient and allowed capacity utilization to remain relatively strong and to increase above 80 percent in the past two months.