Nucor is planning to help ‘rebuild this country,’ says CEO

August 12, 2021: -On Tuesday, the chief executive of Nucor cheered the Senate’s approval of the bipartisan infrastructure package, telling CNBC.

On Tuesday, investors reacted to the crucial role Nucor will play in those efforts, which sends the company’s shares up 9.6% to close at $118.10 apiece. The stock notched an all-time intraday high of $118.93 in the session. Nucor was the best-performing constituent in the S&P 500.

The $1 trillion pieces of legislation still must clear the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives before it can go to Biden’s desk and be signed into law. Around 19 Republicans joined all 50 Democrats to pass the bill, including $550 billion in funding to upgrade roads, water systems, transit networks, and power grids and expand broadband access in the Senate.

“As Nucor sees it, it’s really through a lens of about three things,” Topalian said. “It’s about America’s safety. The competitiveness of America and lastly, the resurgence of American manufacturing. If we’ve learned anything through this pandemic, it must be a nation that makes and builds things here in America.”

Shares of North Carolina-based Nucor are nearly 122% year to date, which benefits not only from the prospect of infrastructure upgrades but the broad economic recovery from the Covid crisis after steelmaker U.S. Steel is up 68.81% so far this year.

Topalian said that the entire American steel industry is well-positioned to benefit from the infrastructure bill, should Biden ultimately sign it.

“We are the cleanest steelmakers on the planet and again poised and ready to go,” he said. “If you think about the investment China makes, last year alone, they spent $8 trillion on infrastructure. We’ve got to stay competitive as a nation.”