MRC GLOBAL INC. - Annual Report: 2017 (Form 10-K)

 

 

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 

FORM 10-K

 

(Mark One)

☒ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(D) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2017

or

☐TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(D) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

FOR THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM              TO

Commission file number: 001-35479



MRC Global Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

 

(877) 294-7574

(Registrant’s Telephone Number, including Area Code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

(Title of class)



Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Exchange Act.    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§ 229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.    

 



Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ☐    No   ☒

The Company’s common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “MRC”. The aggregate market value of voting common stock held by non-affiliates was $1.561 billion as of the close of trading as reported on the New York Stock Exchange on June 30, 2017. There were 91,651,168 shares of the registrant’s common stock (excluding 287,699 unvested restricted shares), par value $0.01 per share, issued and outstanding as of February 9, 2018.

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DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the registrant’s proxy statement relating to the 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, to be filed within 120 days of the end of the fiscal year covered by this report, are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 





 

 

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PART I

Unless otherwise indicated or the context otherwise requires, all references to the “Company,” “MRC Global,” “MRC,” “we,” “us,” “our” and the “registrant” refer to MRC Global Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries.

ITEM  1.BUSINESS

General

We are the largest global industrial distributor, based on sales, of pipe, valves and fittings (“PVF”) and related products and services to the energy industry and hold a leading position in our industry across each of the upstream (exploration, production and extraction of underground oil and natural gas), midstream (gathering and transmission of oil and natural gas, natural gas utilities and the storage and distribution of oil and natural gas) and downstream (crude oil refining, petrochemical and chemical processing and general industrials) sectors. We offer approximately 170,000 SKUs, including an extensive array of PVF, oilfield supply, valve automation, measurement, instrumentation and other general and specialty products from our global network of suppliers. Through our U.S., Canadian and International segments, we serve our more than 16,000 customers through approximately 300 service locations including regional distribution centers, branches, corporate offices and third party pipe yards, where we often deploy pipe near customer locations. We are diversified by geography, the industry sectors we serve and the products we sell.

Our customers use the PVF and oilfield supplies that we supply in mission critical process applications that require us to provide a high degree of product knowledge, technical expertise and comprehensive value added services to our customers. We seek to provide best-in-class service and a one-stop shop for our customers by satisfying the most complex, multi-site needs of many of the largest companies in the energy sector as their primary PVF supplier. We provide services such as product testing, manufacturer assessments, multiple daily deliveries, volume purchasing, inventory and zone store management and warehousing, technical support, training, just-in-time delivery, truck stocking, order consolidation, product tagging and system interfaces customized to customer and supplier specifications for tracking and replenishing inventory, engineering of control packages, and valve inspection and repair, which we believe result in deeply integrated customer relationships. We believe the critical role we play in our customers’ supply chain, together with our extensive product and services offering, broad global presence, customer-linked scalable information systems and efficient distribution capabilities, serve to solidify our long-standing customer relationships and drive our growth. As a result, we have an average relationship of over 25 years with our 25 largest customers.

In 2016, global customer spending fell by 27%, following a 21% decline in 2015. This brought spending to its lowest levels since 2009 and marked the first time in nearly 30 years that our customers’ global spending had been down in consecutive years.  However, our business rebounded in 2017 with sales growth of 20% and prominent exploration and production (“E&P”) spending surveys, which include many of our customers, forecast that spending will continue to increase in 2018 and 2019.  We have benefited historically from several growth trends within the energy industry, including high levels of customer expansion and maintenance expenditures. Long-term growth in spending has been driven by several factors, including demand growth for petroleum and petroleum derived products, underinvestment in global energy infrastructure, growth in shale and unconventional exploration and production (“E&P”) activity, and anticipated strength in the oil, natural gas, refined products and petrochemical sectors. In the longer term, we believe carbon based energy will continue to play a critical role in supporting economic growth, particularly in developing countries.  In the near term, however, customer spending will continue to be sensitive to global oil and natural gas prices and general economic conditions.  As such, we expect our business will continue to experience periods of volatility.

MRC Global Inc. was incorporated in Delaware on November 20, 2006. Our principal executive office is located at 1301 McKinney Street, Suite 2300, Houston, Texas 77010. Our telephone number is (877) 294-7574. Our website address is www.mrcglobal.com. Information contained on our website is expressly not incorporated by reference into this document.

Business Strategy

As an industrial distributor of PVF and related products to the energy industry, our strategy is focused on growth, margin enhancement and the development of long-term customer relationships within the markets we serve. Our strategic objectives are to increase our market share by executing global preferred supplier contracts with new and existing customers, growing organically by maintaining a focus on our managed and targeted growth accounts, enhancing our product and service offerings, extending our global platform to major PVF energy markets through acquisitions, investing in technology systems and branch infrastructure to achieve improved operational excellence and optimizing our working capital.

We believe that global preferred supplier agreements allow us to better serve our customers’ needs and provide customers with a global platform in which to procure their products. The agreements vary by customer; however, in most cases, we are the preferred supplier, and while there are no minimum purchase requirements, we generally have a larger proportion of the customer’s spending in our product categories.  In addition, through system integration, we believe transactions with these customers can be more streamlined. We strive to add scope to these arrangements in various ways including adding geographies, product lines, inventory management and inventory logistics.

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Our approach to expanding existing markets and accessing new markets is multifaceted.  We seek to expand our geographic footprint, pursue strategic acquisitions and cultivate relationships with our existing customer base. We work with our customers to develop innovative supply chain solutions that enable us to consistently deliver the high quality products they need when they need them. By being a consistent and reliable supplier, we are able to maintain and grow our market share with both new and existing customers.

We continually broaden our product offering and supplier base.  Product expansion opportunities include alloy, chrome, stainless products, gaskets, seals and other industrial supply products. We remain focused on higher margin products such as valves, valve automation, measurement and instrumentation, as well as, high alloy products.

We also target growth with our midsized customers and diversification of our upstream and midstream customer bases. We do this through detailed account planning and by educating potential customers on the offerings and logistics services we provide.

Our acquisition strategy is focused on those businesses that will broaden our international geographic footprint, in certain energy intensive regions, or those that expand our product offerings, particularly in valves, valve automation, instrumentation, stainless and alloy or within a particular sector, such as downstream. We also consider “bolt-on” acquisitions that supplement our existing offerings.  Capital and operating expense spending by the energy industry outside of North America is generally greater than spending in North America, particularly in the upstream and downstream sectors.  Much of that spending is done by large integrated oil companies to whom we supply in North America.  Our strategy is aimed to capture more of the integrated oil companies international spending and bring our value added business proposition to their worldwide operations. We also believe that being able to serve our customers globally provides us an advantage in obtaining master service or framework agreements both internationally as well as in North America as international oil company customers, in particular, look for a “one-stop shop” provider for their PVF needs.

We invest in information technology (“IT”) systems and branch infrastructure to achieve improved operational excellence.  Our concept of operational excellence leverages standardized business processes to deliver top tier safety performance, a consistent customer experience and a lower overall cost to serve.    We have implemented an ERP system in our International segment, reducing the number of systems from 14 to one.  We now have two operating systems globally to facilitate continued improvements in operational excellence.  Through the further development of our electronic catalog, MRCGOTM, we continue to enhance and add to the customer experience.  Our digital strategy is designed to add further differentiation to our product and service offering with an objective to maintain or grow our business with new and existing customers. 

Operations

Our business is segregated into four geographical operating segments, our U.S. Eastern Region and Gulf Coast, U.S. Western Region, Canadian, and International operations. These segments represent our business of providing PVF and related products and services to the energy industry, across each of the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors. For reporting purposes, our U.S. operating segments are aggregated based on their economic similarities.  Financial information regarding our reportable segments appears in “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and in Note 14 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in Item 8 of this Form 10-K.

Our U.S. reportable segment represented approximately 79% of our consolidated revenue in 2017. We maintain distribution operations throughout the country with concentrations in the most active oil and natural gas producing regions. Our network is comprised of 102 branch locations, 9 distribution centers, 13 valve and engineering centers and 32 third-party pipe yards.

Our Canadian segment represented approximately 8% of our consolidated revenue in 2017. Our distribution operations extend throughout the western part of Canada with concentrations in Alberta and western Saskatchewan. In Canada, we have 25 branch locations, one distribution center, one valve and engineering center and 8 third-party pipe yards.

Our International segment represented approximately 13% of our consolidated revenue in 2017. This segment includes 50 branch locations located throughout Europe, Asia, Australasia, the Middle East and Caspian with six distribution centers in the United Kingdom, Norway, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and Australia. We also maintain 13 valve and engineering centers in Europe, Asia and Australia.

Safety.  In our business, safety is of paramount importance to us and to our customers.  Injuries and loss of life can have a terrible impact on our employees, the employees of our customers and our and their respective suppliers, contractors and business invitees at the work site as well as any of their families.  In addition, unsafe conditions can cause or contribute to injuries, deaths, property damage and pollution that, in turn, can create significant liabilities for which insurance may not always be sufficient.  We are also subject to many safety regulatory standards such as those standards that the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation or state or foreign agencies of a similar nature may impose and enforce upon us.  Failure to meet those standards can result in fines, penalties or agency actions that can impose additional costs upon our business.  For all of these reasons, we and our customers demand high safety standards and practices to prevent the occurrence of unsafe conditions and any resulting harm.  Our operations, therefore, focus every day on the safety of our employees and those with whom we do business.  Our safety programs are designed to focus on the highest likely safety risks in our business and to build a culture of safe practices and continuous safety improvement for our employees, our customers and others with whom we do business or otherwise come into contact.

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Among other safety measures, we track our total recordable incident rate (“TRIR”) and our lost work day rate (“LWDR”), both per 200,000 hours worked. Our TRIR has fallen over the past three years from 1.14 in 2015 to 0.78 in 2017. This compares favorably to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (“BLS”) average of 5.0 for wholesalers of metal products.  This was the lowest annual TRIR in our Company’s history.  Likewise, our LWDR was 0.26 in 2017.  This also compares favorably to the BLS average of 1.9 for wholesalers of metal products.  A 2016 survey that the National Association of Wholesaler Distributors conducted of 45 distribution companies with over $1 billion in revenue placed us in the top quartile of U.S. companies in safety performance for the surveyed distributors based on OSHA TRIR.  In addition, our recordable vehicle incident rate (“RVIR”) has also remained low at 0.65.

Products:  We distribute a complete line of PVF products, primarily used in energy infrastructure applications. The products we distribute are used in the construction, maintenance, repair and overhaul of equipment used in extreme operating conditions such as high pressure, high/low temperature and highly corrosive and abrasive environments. We are required to carry significant amounts of inventory to meet the rapid delivery, often same day, requirements of our customers. The breadth and depth of our product offerings and our extensive global presence allow us to provide high levels of service to our customers. Due to our broad inventory coverage, we are able to fulfill more orders more quickly, including those with lower volume and specialty items, than we would be able to if we operated on a smaller scale or only at a local or regional level. Key product types are described below:

Services: We provide many of our customers with a comprehensive array of services including multiple deliveries each day, zone store management, valve tagging and system interfaces that link the customer to our proprietary information systems. This allows us to interface with our customers’ IT systems with cross-referenced part numbers, streamlining the ordering process making it easier and more efficient to purchase our products. Such services strengthen our position with customers as we become more integrated into their supply chain and we are able to market a “total transaction value” solution rather than individual products.  

We continue to invest in and expand our comprehensive information systems. In 2017, we completed the transition of our International business to a single ERP platform.  These systems, which provide for customer and supplier electronic integrations, information sharing and e-commerce applications, including our MRCGOTM electronic catalog, further strengthen our ability to provide high levels of service to our customers. Our highly specialized implementation group focuses on the integration of our information systems and implementation of improved business processes with those of a new customer during the initiation phase. By maintaining a specialized team, we are able to utilize best practices to implement our systems and processes, thereby providing solutions to customers in a more organized, efficient and effective manner. This approach is valuable to large, multi-location customers who have demanding service requirements.

As major integrated and large independent energy companies have implemented efficiency initiatives to focus on their core business, many of these companies have begun outsourcing certain of their procurement and inventory management requirements. In response to these initiatives and to satisfy customer service requirements, we offer integrated supply services to customers who wish to outsource all or a part of the administrative burden associated with sourcing and managing PVF and other related products, and we also often have MRC Global employees on-site full-time at many customer locations. Our integrated supply group offers procurement-related services, physical warehousing services, product quality assurance and inventory ownership and analysis services.

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Suppliers: We source the products we distribute from a global network of approximately 12,000 suppliers in over 40 countries. We have approximately 100 dedicated supply chain management employees that handle purchasing.  Our suppliers benefit from access to our large, diversified customer base and, by consolidating customer orders allowing for manufacturing efficiencies, we benefit from stronger purchasing power and preferred vendor programs. Our purchases from our 25 largest suppliers in 2017 approximated 43% of our total purchases, with our single largest supplier constituting approximately 9%. We are the largest customer for many of our suppliers, and we source the majority of the products we distribute directly from the manufacturer. The remainder of the products we distribute are sourced from manufacturer representatives, trading companies and, in some instances, other distributors.

We believe our customers and suppliers recognize us as an industry leader in part due to the quality of products we supply and for the formal processes we use to evaluate vendor performance. This vendor assessment process is referred to as the MRC Global Supplier Registration Process, which involves employing individuals, certified by the International Registry of Certificated Auditors, who specialize in conducting on-site assessments of our manufacturers as well as monitoring and evaluating the quality of goods produced. The result of this process is the MRC Global approved manufacturer’s listing (“AML”). Products from the manufacturers on this list are supplied across many of the industries we support. Given that many of our largest customers, especially those in our downstream sector, maintain their own formal AML listing, we are recognized as an important source of information sharing with our key customers regarding the results of our on-site assessment. For this reason, together with our commitment to promote high quality products that bring the best overall value to our customers, we often become the preferred provider of AML products to these customers. Many of our customers regularly collaborate with us regarding specific manufacturer performance, our own experience with vendors’ products and the results of our on-site manufacturer assessments. The emphasis placed on the MRC Global AML by both our customers and suppliers helps secure our central and critical position in the global PVF supply chain.

We utilize a variety of freight carriers in addition to our corporate truck fleet to ensure timely and efficient delivery of our products. With respect to deliveries of products from us to our customers, or our outbound needs, we utilize both our corporate fleet and third-party transportation providers. With respect to shipments of products from suppliers to us, or our inbound needs, we principally use third-party carriers.

Sales and Marketing: We distribute our products to a wide variety of end-users, and we have operations in 22 countries and direct sales into over 100 countries around the world. We have approximately 1,500 operations personnel around the world.  Our broad inventory offering and distribution network allows us to serve large global customers with consistent, high-quality service that is unrivaled in our industry. Local relationships, depth of inventory, responsive service and timely delivery are critical to the sales process in the PVF distribution industry. Our sales efforts are customer and product driven and provide a system that is more responsive to changing customer and product needs than a traditional, fully centralized structure.

Our sales model applies a two-pronged approach to address both regional and national markets. Regional sales teams are based in our core geographic regions and are complemented by a global accounts sales team organized by sector or product expertise and focused on large regional, national or global customers. These sales teams are then supported by groups with additional specific service or product expertise, including integrated supply, valves, valve automation, corrosion resistant products, measurement equipment and implementation. Our overall sales force is then internally divided into outside and inside sales forces.

Our over 450 account managers and external sales representatives develop relationships with prospective and existing customers in an effort to better understand their needs and to increase the number of our products specified or approved by a given customer. Outside sales representatives may be branch outside sales representatives, focused on customer relationships in specific geographies, or technical outside sales representatives, who focus on specific products and provide detailed technical support to customers. Internationally, for valve sales, the majority of our sales force is comprised of qualified engineers who are able to meet complex customer requirements, select optimal solutions from a range of products to increase customers’ efficiency and lower total product lifecycle costs.

Our inside sales force of over 800 customer service representatives is responsible for processing orders generated by new and existing customers as well as by our outside sales force. The customer service representatives develop order packages based on specific customer needs, interface with manufacturers to determine product availability, ensure on-time delivery and establish pricing of materials and services based on guidelines and predetermined metrics that management establishes.

Seasonality: Our business normally experiences mild seasonal effects as demand for the products we distribute is generally higher during the months of August, September and October. Demand for the products we distribute during the months of November and December and early in the year generally tends to be lower due to a lower level of activity near the end of the calendar year in the industry sectors we serve and due to winter weather disruptions. In addition, certain exploration and production (“E&P”) activities, primarily in Canada, typically experience a springtime reduction due to seasonal thaws and regulatory restrictions, limiting the ability of drilling rigs to operate effectively during these periods.

Customers: Our principal customers are companies active in the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors of the energy industry. Due to the demanding operating conditions in the energy industry, high costs and safety risks associated with equipment failure, customers prefer highly reliable products and vendors with established qualifications, reputation and experience. As our PVF products

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typically are mission critical and represent a fraction of the total cost of a given project, our customers often place a premium on service and high reliability given the high cost to them of maintenance or project delays. We strive to build long-term relationships with our customers by maintaining our reputation as a supplier of high-quality,  reliable products and value-added services and solutions.

We have a diverse customer base of over 16,000 customers. We are not dependent on any one customer or group of customers. A majority of our customers are offered terms of net 30 days (payment is due within 30 days of the date of the invoice). Customers generally have the right to return products we have sold, subject to certain conditions and limitations, although returns have historically been immaterial to our sales. For the year ended December 31, 2017, our 25 largest customers represented approximately 53%  of our total sales, with our single largest customer constituting approximately 7%. For many of our largest customers, we are often their sole or primary PVF provider by sector or geography, their largest or second largest supplier in aggregate or, in certain instances, the sole provider for their upstream, midstream and downstream procurement needs. We believe that many customers for which we are not the exclusive or comprehensive sole source PVF provider will continue to reduce their number of suppliers in an effort to reduce costs and administrative burdens and focus on their core operations. As such, we believe these customers will seek to select PVF distributors with the most extensive product offering and broadest geographic presence. Furthermore, we believe our business will benefit as companies in the energy industry continue to consolidate and the larger, resulting companies look to larger distributors such as ourselves as their sole or primary source PVF provider.

Backlog: We determine backlog by the amount of unshipped customer orders, either specific or general in nature, which the customer may revise or cancel in certain instances.  The table below details our backlog by segment (in millions): 



*Amount excludes U.S. OCTG backlog of $42 million for 2015.  We disposed of our U.S. OCTG product line in February 2016.

As of December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, approximately 14% and 28% of our ending backlog was associated with one customer in our U.S segment.  In addition, approximately 14% and 10% of our ending backlog for 2017 and 2016, respectively, was associated with one customer in our International segment. In each case, these are related to significant ongoing customer projects.  There can be no assurance that the backlog amounts will ultimately be realized as revenue or that we will earn a profit on the backlog of orders, but we expect that substantially all of the sales in our backlog will be realized within twelve months.

Competition: We are the largest PVF distributor to the energy industry based on sales. The broad PVF distribution industry is fragmented and includes large, nationally recognized distributors, major regional distributors and many smaller local distributors. The principal methods of competition include offering prompt local service, fulfillment capability, breadth of product and service offerings, price and total costs to the customer. Our competitors include large PVF distributors, such as DistributionNOW, Ferguson Enterprises (a subsidiary of Ferguson, plc), Van Leeuwen, FloWorks, several regional or product-specific competitors and many local, family-owned and privately held PVF distributors.

 Employees: We have approximately  3,450 employees of which 127 employees belong to a union and are covered by collective bargaining agreements. We also have 130 employees in Norway and Australia that are not members of a union but are covered by union negotiated agreements. We consider our relationships with our employees to be good.

For a breakdown of our annual revenue by geography, see “Note 14—Segment, Geographic and Product Line Information” to the audited consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2017.  

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Environmental Matters

We are subject to a variety of federal, state, local, foreign and provincial environmental, health and safety laws, regulations and permitting requirements (collectively, “environmental laws”), including those governing the following:

Historically, the costs to comply with environmental laws have not been material to our financial position, results of operations or cash flows. We are not aware of any pending environmental compliance or remediation matters that, in the opinion of management, are reasonably likely to have a material effect on our business, financial position or results of operations or cash flows. However, our failure to comply with applicable environmental laws could result in fines, penalties, enforcement actions, employee, neighbor or other third-party claims for property damage and personal injury, requirements to clean up property or to pay for the costs of cleanup or regulatory or judicial orders requiring corrective measures, including the installation of pollution control equipment or remedial actions.

Certain environmental laws, such as the U.S. federal Superfund law or its state or foreign equivalents, may impose the obligation to investigate, remediate, monitor and clean up contamination at a facility on current and former owners, lessees or operators or on persons who may have sent waste to that facility for disposal.  These environmental laws may impose liability without regard to fault or to the legality of the activities giving rise to the contamination. Although we are not aware of any active litigation against us under the U.S. federal Superfund law or its state or foreign equivalents, we have identified contamination at several of our current and former facilities, and we have incurred and will continue to incur costs to investigate, remediate, monitor and clean up these conditions. Moreover, we may incur liabilities in connection with environmental conditions currently unknown to us relating to our prior, existing or future owned or leased sites or operations or those of predecessor companies whose liabilities we may have assumed or acquired. We believe that indemnities contained in certain of our acquisition agreements may cover certain environmental conditions existing at the time of the acquisition subject to certain terms, limitations and conditions. However, if these indemnification provisions terminate or if the indemnifying parties do not fulfill their indemnification obligations, we may be subject to liability with respect to the environmental matters that those indemnification provisions address.

Certain governments at the international, national, regional and state level are at various stages of considering or implementing treaties and environmental laws that could limit emissions of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, associated with the burning of fossil fuels. For instance, in September 2016, 175 countries ratified the Paris Agreement, which requires member countries to review and determine their respective goals towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Certain states and regions have also adopted or are considering environmental laws that impose overall caps or taxes on greenhouse gas emissions from certain sectors or facility categories or mandate the increased use of electricity from renewable energy sources. It is not possible to predict how new environmental laws to address greenhouse gas emissions would impact our business or that of our customers, but these laws and regulations could impose costs on us or negatively impact the market for the products we distribute and, consequently, our business.  Even so, the U.S. Energy Information Administration in its International Energy Outlook Report 2017 continues to project, in its reference case, increases in world energy consumption for oil and gas through 2040 despite these and other efforts to reduce consumption of fossil fuels.

In addition, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) has implemented regulations that require permits for and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for certain categories of emission sources, including (among others) New Source Performance Standards for new power plants and emission guidelines for existing power plants (commonly known as the “Clean Power Plan”).  In anticipation of and in response to these regulations, United States electric producers have been switching from coal to natural gas as a cleaner burning fuel source.  This replacement of natural gas for coal has benefitted our business as our customers include natural gas producers.   There have been various court challenges and proposed regulatory changes to these EPA regulations. Even so, switching from coal to natural gas has continued, in part, driven by low natural gas prices as well as continued regulatory uncertainty regarding coal emissions.

Also, federal, state, local, foreign and provincial governments have adopted, or are considering the adoption of, environmental laws that could impose more stringent permitting; disclosure; wastewater and other waste disposal; greenhouse gas, ethane or volatile organic compound control, leak detection and repair requirements;  and well construction and testing requirements on our customers’ hydraulic fracturing. 

Environmental laws applicable to our business and the business of our customers, including environmental laws regulating the energy industry, and the interpretation or enforcement of these environmental laws, are constantly evolving; it is impossible to predict accurately the effect that changes in these environmental laws, or their interpretation or enforcement, may have upon our business, financial condition or results of operations. Should environmental laws, or their interpretation or enforcement, become more stringent,

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our costs, or the costs of our customers, could increase, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

Exchange Rate Information

In this report, unless otherwise indicated, foreign currency amounts are converted into U.S. dollar amounts at the exchange rates in effect on December 31, 2017 and 2016 for balance sheet figures. Income statement figures are converted on a monthly basis, using each month’s average conversion rate.

Available Information

Our website is located at www.mrcglobal.com. We make available free of charge on or through our internet website our annual report on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file this material with, or furnish it to, the SEC.

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ITEM 1A.    RISK FACTORS

You should carefully consider the following risk factors as well as the other risks and uncertainties contained in this Annual Report on
Form 10-K or in our other SEC filings.  The occurrence of one or more of these risks or uncertainties could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results. In this Annual Report on Form 10-K, unless the context expressly requires a different reading, when we state that a factor could “adversely affect us,”  have a “material adverse effect,” “adversely affect our business” and similar expressions, we mean that the factor could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition,  operating results and cash flows. Information contained in this section may be considered “forward-looking statements.” See “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” for a discussion of certain qualifications regarding forward looking statements.

Risks Related to Our Business

Decreased capital and other expenditures in the energy industry, which can result from decreased oil and natural gas prices, among other things, can adversely impact our customers’ demand for our products and our revenue.

A large portion of our revenue depends upon the level of capital and operating expenditures in the oil and natural gas industry, including capital and other expenditures in connection with exploration, drilling, production, gathering, transportation, refining and processing operations. Demand for the products we distribute and services we provide is particularly sensitive to the level of exploration, development and production activity of, and the corresponding capital and other expenditures by, oil and natural gas companies. A material decline in oil or natural gas prices, inability to access capital, and consolidation within the industry could all depress levels of exploration, development and production activity and, therefore, could lead to a decrease in our customers’ capital and other expenditures. If our customers’ expenditures decline, our business will suffer.

Volatile oil and gas prices affect demand for our products.

As evidenced by the decline of oil prices from late 2014 through 2016, prices for oil and natural gas are cyclical and subject to large fluctuations in response to relatively minor changes in the supply of and demand for oil and natural gas, market uncertainty and a variety of other factors that are beyond our control. Any sustained decrease in capital expenditures in the oil and natural gas industry could have a material adverse effect on us.

Many factors affect the supply of and demand for energy and, therefore, influence oil and natural gas prices, including:

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Oil and natural gas prices have been and are expected to remain volatile. This volatility has historically caused oil and natural gas companies to change their strategies and expenditure levels from year to year. We have experienced in the past, and we will likely experience in the future, significant fluctuations in operating results based on these changes. In particular, volatility in the oil and natural gas sectors could adversely affect our business.

General economic conditions may adversely affect our business.

U.S. and global general economic conditions affect many aspects of our business, including demand for the products we distribute and the pricing and availability of supplies. General economic conditions and predictions regarding future economic conditions also affect our forecasts. A decrease in demand for the products we distribute or other adverse effects resulting from an economic downturn may cause us to fail to achieve our anticipated financial results. General economic factors beyond our control that affect our business and customers include interest rates, recession, inflation, deflation, customer credit availability, consumer credit availability, consumer debt levels, performance of housing markets, energy costs, tax rates and policy, unemployment rates, commencement or escalation of war or hostilities, the threat or possibility of war, terrorism or other global or national unrest, political or financial instability and other matters that influence our customers’ spending. Increasing volatility in financial markets may cause these factors to change with a greater degree of frequency or increase in magnitude. In addition, worldwide economic conditions could have an adverse effect on our business, prospects, operating results, financial condition, and cash flows going forward. Continued adverse economic conditions would have an adverse effect on us.

We may be unable to compete successfully with other companies in our industry.

We sell products and services in very competitive markets. In some cases, we compete with large companies with substantial resources. In other cases, we compete with smaller regional players that may increasingly be willing to provide similar products and services at lower prices. Competitive actions, such as price reductions, consolidation in the industry, improved delivery and other actions, could adversely affect our revenue and earnings. We could experience a material adverse effect to the extent that our competitors are successful in reducing our customers’ purchases of products and services from us. Competition could also cause us to lower our prices, which could reduce our margins and profitability. Furthermore, consolidation in our industry could heighten the impacts of the competition on our business and results of operations discussed above, particularly if consolidation results in competitors with stronger financial and strategic resources and could also result in increases to the prices we are required to pay for acquisitions we may make in the future.

Demand for the products we distribute could decrease if the manufacturers of those products were to sell a substantial amount of goods directly to end users in the sectors we serve.

Historically, users of PVF and related products have purchased certain amounts of these products through distributors and not directly from manufacturers. If customers were to purchase the products that we sell directly from manufacturers, or if manufacturers sought to increase their efforts to sell directly to end users, we could experience a significant decrease in profitability. These or other developments that remove us from, or limit our role in, the distribution chain, may harm our competitive position in the marketplace, reduce our sales and earnings and adversely affect our business.

We may experience unexpected supply shortages.

We distribute products from a wide variety of manufacturers and suppliers. Nevertheless, in the future we may have difficulty obtaining the products we need from suppliers and manufacturers as a result of unexpected demand or production difficulties that might extend lead times. Also, products may not be available to us in quantities sufficient to meet our customer demand. Our inability to obtain products from suppliers and manufacturers in sufficient quantities, or at all, could adversely affect our product offerings and our business.

We may experience cost increases from suppliers, which we may be unable to pass on to our customers.

In the future, we may face supply cost increases due to, among other things, unexpected increases in demand for supplies, decreases in production of supplies, increases in the cost of raw materials, transportation, changes in exchange rates or the imposition of import taxes or tariff on imported products. Any inability to pass supply price increases on to our customers could have a material adverse effect on us. For example, we may be unable to pass increased supply costs on to our customers because significant amounts of our

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sales are derived from stocking program arrangements, contracts and maintenance and repair arrangements, which provide our customers time limited price protection, which may obligate us to sell products at a set price for a specific period. In addition, if supply costs increase, our customers may elect to purchase smaller amounts of products or may purchase products from other distributors. While we may be able to work with our customers to reduce the effects of unforeseen price increases because of our relationships with them, we may not be able to reduce the effects of the cost increases. In addition, to the extent that competition leads to reduced purchases of products or services from us or a reduction of our prices, and these reductions occur concurrently with increases in the prices for selected commodities which we use in our operations, including steel, nickel and molybdenum, the adverse effects described above would likely be exacerbated and could result in a prolonged downturn in profitability.

We do not have contracts with most of our suppliers. The loss of a significant supplier would require us to rely more heavily on our other existing suppliers or to develop relationships with new suppliers. Such a loss may have an adverse effect on our product offerings and our business.

Given the nature of our business, and consistent with industry practice, we do not have contracts with most of our suppliers. We generally make our purchases through purchase orders. Therefore, most of our suppliers have the ability to terminate their relationships with us at any time. Approximately 43% of our total purchases during the year ended December 31, 2017 were from our 25 largest suppliers. Although we believe there are numerous manufacturers with the capacity to supply the products we distribute, the loss of one or more of our major suppliers could have an adverse effect on our product offerings and our business. Such a loss would require us to rely more heavily on our other existing suppliers or develop relationships with new suppliers, which may cause us to pay higher prices for products due to, among other things, a loss of volume discount benefits currently obtained from our major suppliers.

Price reductions by suppliers of products that we sell could cause the value of our inventory to decline. Also, these price reductions could cause our customers to demand lower sales prices for these products, possibly decreasing our margins and profitability on sales to the extent that we purchased our inventory of these products at the higher prices prior to supplier price reductions.

The value of our inventory could decline as a result of manufacturer price reductions with respect to products that we sell. There is no assurance that a substantial decline in product prices would not result in a write-down of our inventory value. Such a write-down could have an adverse effect on our financial condition.

Also, decreases in the market prices of products that we sell could cause customers to demand lower sales prices from us. These price reductions could reduce our margins and profitability on sales with respect to the lower-priced products. Reductions in our margins and profitability on sales could have a material adverse effect on us.

A substantial decrease in the price of steel could significantly lower our gross profit or cash flow.

We distribute many products manufactured from steel. As a result, the price and supply of steel can affect our business and, in particular, our carbon steel line pipe product category. When steel prices are lower, the prices that we charge customers for products may decline, which affects our gross profit and cash flow. At times pricing and availability of steel can be volatile due to numerous factors beyond our control, including general domestic and international economic conditions, labor costs, sales levels, competition, consolidation of steel producers, fluctuations in and the costs of raw materials necessary to produce steel, steel manufacturers’ plant utilization levels and capacities, import duties and tariffs and currency exchange rates. Increases in manufacturing capacity for the carbon steel line pipe products could put pressure on the prices we receive for our carbon steel line pipe products. When steel prices decline, customer demands for lower prices and our competitors’ responses to those demands could result in lower sales prices and, consequently, lower gross profit and cash flow.

If steel prices rise, we may be unable to pass along the cost increases to our customers.

We maintain inventories of steel products to accommodate the lead time requirements of our customers. Accordingly, we purchase steel products in an effort to maintain our inventory at levels that we believe to be appropriate to satisfy the anticipated needs of our customers based upon historic buying practices, contracts with customers and market conditions. Our commitments to purchase steel products are generally at prevailing market prices in effect at the time we place our orders. If steel prices increase between the time we order steel products and the time of delivery of the products to us, our suppliers may impose surcharges that require us to pay for increases in steel prices during the period. Demand for the products we distribute, the actions of our competitors and other factors will influence whether we will be able to pass on steel cost increases and surcharges to our customers, and we may be unsuccessful in doing so.

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We do not have long-term contracts or agreements with many of our customers. The contracts and agreements that we do have generally do not commit our customers to any minimum purchase volume. The loss of a significant customer may have a material adverse effect on us.

Given the nature of our business, and consistent with industry practice, we do not have long-term contracts with many of our customers. In addition, our contracts, including our maintenance, repair and operations (“MRO”) contracts, generally do not commit our customers to any minimum purchase volume. Therefore, a significant number of our customers, including our MRO customers, may terminate their relationships with us or reduce their purchasing volume at any time. Furthermore, the long-term customer contracts that we do have are generally terminable without cause on short notice. Our 25 largest customers represented approximately 53% of our sales for the year ended December 31, 2017. The products that we may sell to any particular customer depend in large part on the size of that customer’s capital expenditure budget in a particular year and on the results of competitive bids for major projects. Consequently, a customer that accounts for a significant portion of our sales in one fiscal year may represent an immaterial portion of our sales in subsequent fiscal years. The loss of a significant customer, or a substantial decrease in a significant customer’s orders, may have an adverse effect on our sales and revenue.  In addition, we are subject to customer audit clauses in many of our multi-year contracts. If we are not able to provide the proper documentation or support for invoices per the contract terms, we may be subject to negotiated settlements with our major customers.

Changes in our customer and product mix could cause our gross profit percentage to fluctuate.

From time to time, we may experience changes in our customer mix or in our product mix. Changes in our customer mix may result from geographic expansion, daily selling activities within current geographic markets and targeted selling activities to new customer segments. Changes in our product mix may result from marketing activities to existing customers and needs communicated to us from existing and prospective customers. If customers begin to require more lower-margin products from us and fewer higher-margin products, our business, results of operations and financial condition may suffer.

Customer credit risks could result in losses.

The concentration of our customers in the energy industry may impact our overall exposure to credit risk as customers may be similarly affected by prolonged changes in economic and industry conditions. Further, laws in some jurisdictions in which we operate could make collection difficult or time consuming. In addition, in times when commodity prices are low, our customers with higher debt levels may not have the ability to pay their debts.  We perform ongoing credit evaluations of our customers and do not generally require collateral in support of our trade receivables. While we maintain reserves for expected credit losses, we cannot assure these reserves will be sufficient to meet write-offs of uncollectible receivables or that our losses from such receivables will be consistent with our expectations.

We may be unable to successfully execute or effectively integrate acquisitions.

One of our key operating strategies is to selectively pursue acquisitions, including large scale acquisitions, to continue to grow and increase profitability. However, acquisitions, particularly of a significant scale, involve numerous risks and uncertainties, including intense competition for suitable acquisition targets, the potential unavailability of financial resources necessary to consummate acquisitions in the future, increased leverage due to additional debt financing that may be required to complete an acquisition, dilution of our stockholders’ net current book value per share if we issue additional equity securities to finance an acquisition, difficulties in identifying suitable acquisition targets or in completing any transactions identified on sufficiently favorable terms, assumption of undisclosed or unknown liabilities and the need to obtain regulatory or other governmental approvals that may be necessary to complete acquisitions. In addition, any future acquisitions may entail significant transaction costs and risks associated with entry into new markets.

Even when acquisitions are completed, integration of acquired entities can involve significant difficulties, such as:

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Failure to manage these acquisition growth risks could have an adverse effect on us.

Our indebtedness may affect our ability to operate our business, and this could have a material adverse effect on us.

We have now and will likely continue to have indebtedness. As of December 31, 2017, we had total debt outstanding of  $526 million and excess availability of $437 million under our credit facilities. We may incur significant additional indebtedness in the future. If new indebtedness is added to our current indebtedness, the risks described below could increase. Our significant level of indebtedness could have important consequences, such as:

In addition, borrowings under our credit facilities bear interest at variable rates. If market interest rates increase, the variable-rate debt will create higher debt service requirements, which could adversely affect our cash flow. Our interest expense for the year ended December 31, 2017 was  $31 million.

Our ability to make scheduled debt payments, to refinance our obligations with respect to our indebtedness and to fund capital and non-capital expenditures necessary to maintain the condition of our operating assets, properties and systems software, as well as to provide capacity for the growth of our business, depends on our financial and operating performance, which, in turn, is subject to prevailing economic conditions and financial, business, competitive, legal and other factors. Our business may not generate sufficient cash flow from operations, and future borrowings may not be available to us under our credit facilities in an amount sufficient to enable us to pay our indebtedness or to fund our other liquidity needs. We may seek to sell assets to fund our liquidity needs but may not be able to do so. We may also need to refinance all or a portion of our indebtedness on or before maturity. We may not be able to refinance any of our indebtedness on commercially reasonable terms or at all.

In addition, we are and will be subject to covenants contained in agreements governing our present and future indebtedness. These covenants include and will likely include restrictions on:

In addition, any defaults under our credit facilities, including our global asset-based lending facility (“Global ABL Facility”), our senior secured term loan B (“Term Loan”) or our other debt could trigger cross defaults under other or future credit agreements and may permit acceleration of our other indebtedness. If our indebtedness is accelerated, we cannot be certain that we will have sufficient funds available to pay the accelerated indebtedness or that we will have the ability to refinance the accelerated indebtedness on terms favorable to us or at all. For a description of our credit facilities and indebtedness, see “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Liquidity and Capital Resources”.

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We are a holding company and depend upon our subsidiaries for our cash flow.

We are a holding company. Our subsidiaries conduct all of our operations and own substantially all of our assets. Consequently, our cash flow and our ability to meet our obligations or to pay dividends or make other distributions in the future will depend upon the cash flow of our subsidiaries and our subsidiaries’ payment of funds to us in the form of dividends, tax sharing payments or otherwise.

The ability of our subsidiaries to make any payments to us will depend on their earnings, the terms of their current and future indebtedness, tax considerations and legal and contractual restrictions on the ability to make distributions. In particular, our subsidiaries’ credit facilities currently impose limitations on the ability of our subsidiaries to make distributions to us and consequently our ability to pay dividends to our stockholders. Subject to limitations in our credit facilities, our subsidiaries may also enter into additional agreements that contain covenants prohibiting them from distributing or advancing funds or transferring assets to us under certain circumstances, including to pay dividends.

Our subsidiaries are separate and distinct legal entities. Any right that we have to receive any assets of or distributions from any of our subsidiaries upon the bankruptcy, dissolution, liquidation or reorganization, or to realize proceeds from the sale of their assets, will be junior to the claims of that subsidiary’s creditors, including trade creditors and holders of debt that the subsidiary issued.

Changes in our credit profile may affect our relationship with our suppliers, which could have a material adverse effect on our liquidity.

Changes in our credit profile may affect the way our suppliers view our ability to make payments and may induce them to shorten the payment terms of their invoices if they perceive our indebtedness to be high. Given the large dollar amounts and volume of our purchases from suppliers, a change in payment terms may have a material adverse effect on our liquidity and our ability to make payments to our suppliers and, consequently, may have a material adverse effect on us.

If tariffs and duties on imports into the U.S. of certain of the products that we sell are lifted or imposed, we could have too many of these products in inventory competing against less expensive imports or conversely pay higher prices for products that we sell.  

U.S. law currently imposes tariffs and duties on imports from certain foreign countries of line pipe and, to a lesser extent, on imports of certain other products that we sell. If these tariffs and duties are lifted or reduced or if the level of these imported products otherwise increase, and our U.S. customers accept these imported products, we could be materially and adversely affected to the extent that we would then have higher-cost products in our inventory or experience lower prices and margins due to increased supplies of these products that could drive down prices and margins. If prices of these products were to decrease significantly, we might not be able to profitably sell these products, and the value of our inventory would decline. In addition, significant price decreases could result in a significantly longer holding period for some of our inventory.  Conversely, if tariffs and duties are imposed on imports from certain foreign countries of products that we sell, we could be required to pay higher prices for our products.  Demand for the products we distribute, the actions of our competitors and other factors will influence whether we will be able to pass on additional cost increases to our customers, and we may be unsuccessful in doing so.

We are subject to strict environmental, health and safety laws and regulations that may lead to significant liabilities and negatively impact the demand for our products.

We are subject to a variety of federal, state, local, foreign and provincial environmental, health and safety laws, regulations and permitting requirements (collectively, “environmental laws”), including those governing the following:

Our failure to comply with applicable environmental laws could result in fines, penalties, enforcement actions, employee, neighbor or other third-party claims for property damage and personal injury, requirements to clean up property or to pay for the costs of cleanup or regulatory or judicial orders requiring corrective measures, including the installation of pollution control equipment or remedial actions.

Certain environmental laws, such as the U.S. federal Superfund law or its state or foreign equivalents, may impose the obligation to investigate, remediate, monitor and clean up contamination at a facility on current and former owners, lessees or operators or on persons who may have sent waste to that facility for disposal.  These environmental laws may impose liability without regard to fault or to the legality of the activities giving rise to the contamination. Although we are not aware of any active litigation against us under the U.S. federal Superfund law or its state or foreign equivalents, we have identified contamination at several of our current and former facilities, and we have incurred and will continue to incur costs to investigate, remediate, monitor and clean up these conditions. Moreover, we may incur liabilities in connection with environmental conditions currently unknown to us relating to our prior, existing or future owned or leased sites or operations or those of predecessor companies whose liabilities we may have assumed

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or acquired. We believe that indemnities contained in certain of our acquisition agreements may cover certain environmental conditions existing at the time of the acquisition subject to certain terms, limitations and conditions. However, if these indemnification provisions terminate or if the indemnifying parties do not fulfill their indemnification obligations, we may be subject to liability with respect to the environmental matters that those indemnification provisions address.  Although our responsibility for the clean-up of contamination or pollution to date has not been material, were there to be a significant release of contamination or pollution related to our operations, our obligation to clean up that contamination or pollution could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

Certain governments at the international, national, regional and state level are at various stages of considering or implementing treaties and environmental laws that could limit emissions of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, associated with the burning of fossil fuels.  It is not possible to predict how new environmental laws to address greenhouse gas emissions would impact our business or that of our customers, but these laws and regulations could impose costs on us or negatively impact the market for the products we distribute and, consequently, our business. 



In addition, federal, state, local, foreign and provincial governments have adopted, or are considering the adoption of, environmental laws that could impose more stringent permitting; disclosure; wastewater and other waste disposal; greenhouse gas, ethane or volatile organic compound control, leak detection and repair requirements;  and well construction and testing requirements on our customers’ hydraulic fracturing. 

Environmental laws applicable to our business and the business of our customers, including environmental laws regulating the energy industry, and the interpretation or enforcement of these environmental laws, are constantly evolving; it is impossible to predict accurately the effect that changes in these environmental laws, or their interpretation or enforcement, may have upon our business, financial condition or results of operations. Should environmental laws, or their interpretation or enforcement, become more stringent, our costs, or the costs of our customers, could increase, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

We may not have adequate insurance for potential liabilities, including liabilities arising from litigation.

In the ordinary course of business, we have and in the future may become the subject of various claims, lawsuits and administrative proceedings seeking damages or other remedies concerning our commercial operations, the products we distribute, employees and other matters, including potential claims by individuals alleging exposure to hazardous materials as a result of the products we distribute or our operations. Some of these claims may relate to the activities of businesses that we have acquired, even though these activities may have occurred prior to our acquisition of the businesses. The products we distribute are sold primarily for use in the energy industry, which is subject to inherent risks that could result in death, personal injury, property damage, pollution, release of hazardous substances or loss of production. In addition, defects in the products we distribute could result in death, personal injury, property damage, pollution, release of hazardous substances or damage to equipment and facilities. Actual or claimed defects in the products we distribute may give rise to claims against us for losses and expose us to claims for damages.

We maintain insurance to cover certain of our potential losses, and we are subject to various self-insured retentions, deductibles and caps under our insurance. It is possible, however, that judgments could be rendered against us in cases in which we would be uninsured and beyond the amounts of insurance we have or beyond the amounts that we currently have reserved or anticipate incurring for these matters. Even a partially uninsured claim, if successful and of significant size, could have a material adverse effect on us. Furthermore, we may not be able to continue to obtain insurance on commercially reasonable terms in the future, and we may incur losses from interruption of our business that exceed our insurance coverage. Even in cases where we maintain insurance coverage, our insurers may raise various objections and exceptions to coverage that could make uncertain the timing and amount of any possible insurance recovery. Finally, while we may have insurance coverage, we cannot guarantee that the insurance carrier will have the financial wherewithal to pay a claim otherwise covered by insurance, and as a result we may be responsible for any such claims.

Due to our position as a distributor, we are subject to personal injury, product liability and environmental claims involving allegedly defective products.

Our customers use certain of the products we distribute in potentially hazardous applications that can result in personal injury, product liability and environmental claims. A catastrophic occurrence at a location where end users use the products we distribute may result in us being named as a defendant in lawsuits asserting potentially large claims, even though we did not manufacture the products. Applicable law may render us liable for damages without regard to negligence or fault. In particular, certain environmental laws provide for joint and several and strict liability for remediation of spills and releases of hazardous substances. Certain of these risks are reduced by the fact that we are a distributor of products that third-party manufacturers produce, and, thus, in certain circumstances, we may have third-party warranty or other claims against the manufacturer of products alleged to have been defective. However, there is no assurance that these claims could fully protect us or that the manufacturer would be able financially to provide protection. There is no assurance that our insurance coverage will cover or be adequate to cover the underlying claims. Our insurance does not provide

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coverage for all liabilities (including but not limited to liability for certain events involving pollution or other environmental claims).  Our insurance does not cover damages from breach of contract by us or based on alleged fraud or deceptive trade practices.

We are a defendant in asbestos-related lawsuits. Exposure to these and any future lawsuits could have a material adverse effect on us.

We are a defendant in lawsuits involving approximately 1,153 claims, arising from exposure to asbestos-containing materials included in products that we distributed in the past. Each claim involves allegations of exposure to asbestos-containing materials by a single individual, his or her spouse or family members. The complaints in these lawsuits typically name many other defendants. In the majority of these lawsuits, little or no information is known regarding the nature of the plaintiffs’ alleged injuries or their connection with the products we distributed. Based on our experience with asbestos litigation to date, as well as the existence of certain insurance coverage, we do not believe that the outcome of these pending claims will have a material impact on us. However, the potential liability associated with asbestos claims is subject to many uncertainties, including negative trends with respect to settlement payments, dismissal rates and the types of medical conditions alleged in pending or future claims, negative developments in the claims pending against us, the current or future insolvency of co-defendants, adverse changes in relevant laws or the interpretation of those laws and the extent to which insurance will be available to pay for defense costs, judgments or settlements. Further, while we anticipate that additional claims will be filed against us in the future, we are unable to predict with any certainty the number, timing and magnitude of future claims. Therefore, we can give no assurance that pending or future asbestos litigation will not ultimately have a material adverse effect on us. See “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Contractual Obligations, Commitments and Contingencies—Legal Proceedings” and “Item 3—Legal Proceedings” for more information.

If we lose any of our key personnel, we may be unable to effectively manage our business or continue our growth.

Our future performance depends to a significant degree upon the continued contributions of our management team and our ability to attract, hire, train and retain qualified managerial, sales and marketing personnel. In particular, we rely on our sales and marketing teams to create innovative ways to generate demand for the products we distribute. The loss or unavailability to us of any member of our management team or a key sales or marketing employee could have a material adverse effect on us to the extent we are unable to timely find adequate replacements. We face competition for these professionals from our competitors, our customers and other companies operating in our industry. We may be unsuccessful in attracting, hiring, training and retaining qualified personnel.

Interruptions in the proper functioning of our information systems could disrupt operations and cause increases in costs or decreases in revenue.

The proper functioning of our information systems is critical to the successful operation of our business. We depend on our information management systems to process orders, track credit risk, manage inventory and monitor accounts receivable collections. Our information systems also allow us to efficiently purchase products from our vendors and ship products to our customers on a timely basis, maintain cost-effective operations and provide superior service to our customers. However, our information systems are vulnerable to natural disasters, power losses, telecommunication failures, cyber incidents and other problems. If critical information systems fail or are otherwise unavailable, our ability to procure products to sell, process and ship customer orders, identify business opportunities, maintain proper levels of inventories, collect accounts receivable and pay accounts payable and expenses could be adversely affected. In addition, the cost to repair, modify or replace all or part of our information systems or consolidate one or more systems onto one information technology platform, whether by necessity or choice, would require a significant cash investment on the part of the Company. Our ability to integrate our systems with our customers’ systems would also be significantly affected. We maintain information systems controls designed to protect against, among other things, unauthorized program changes and unauthorized access to data on our information systems. If our information systems controls do not function properly, we face increased risks of unexpected errors and unreliable financial data or theft of proprietary Company information.

The occurrence of cyber incidents, or a deficiency in our cybersecurity, could negatively impact our business by causing a disruption to our operations, a compromise or corruption of our confidential information or damage to our Company’s image or reputation, all of which could negatively impact our financial results.

A cyber incident is considered to be any adverse event that threatens the confidentiality, integrity or availability of our information resources. More specifically, a cyber incident is an intentional attack or an unintentional event that can include gaining unauthorized access to systems to disrupt operations, corrupt data or steal confidential information. As our reliance on technology has increased, so have the risks posed to our systems, both internal and those we have outsourced. Our three primary risks that could directly result from the occurrence of a cyber incident include operational interruption, damage to our Company’s reputation and image and private data exposure. We have implemented hardware and software solutions, processes, training and procedures to help mitigate this risk, but these measures, as well as our organization’s increased awareness of our risk of a cyber incident, do not guarantee that our financial results and operations will not be negatively impacted by such an incident.  While we also have some insurance to protect against the financial damage that a cyber incident could cause, there can be no guarantee that the insurance would be adequate for every type of incident to protect against the financial damages that could occur.  In some incidents, the Company may be required to shut off its

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computer systems, reboot them and reestablish its information from back up tapes.  In other incidents, the Company may be required under various laws to notify any third parties whose data has been compromised.  These incidents can adversely affect us.

Among others, cyber incidents could include the following:

The loss of third-party transportation providers upon whom we depend, or conditions negatively affecting the transportation industry, could increase our costs or cause a disruption in our operations.

We depend upon third-party transportation providers for delivery of products to our customers. Strikes, slowdowns, transportation disruptions or other conditions in the transportation industry, including, among others, shortages of truck drivers, disruptions in rail service, increases in fuel prices and adverse weather conditions, could increase our costs and disrupt our operations and our ability to service our customers on a timely basis. We cannot predict whether or to what extent increases or anticipated increases in fuel prices may impact our costs or cause a disruption in our operations going forward.

We may need additional capital in the future, and it may not be available on acceptable terms, or at all.

We may require more capital in the future to:

We can give no assurance that additional financing will be available on terms favorable to us, or at all. The terms of available financing may place limits on our financial and operating flexibility. If adequate funds are not available on acceptable terms, we may be forced to reduce our operations or delay, limit or abandon expansion opportunities. Moreover, even if we are able to continue our operations, the failure to obtain additional financing could reduce our competitiveness.

Adverse weather events or natural disasters could negatively affect our local economies or disrupt our operations.

Certain areas in which we operate have been susceptible to more frequent and more severe weather events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods and to natural disasters such as earthquakes. These events can disrupt our operations, result in damage to our properties and negatively affect the local economies in which we operate. Additionally, we may experience communication

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disruptions with our customers, vendors and employees. These events can cause physical damage to our branches and require us to close branches. Additionally, our sales order backlog and shipments can experience a temporary decline immediately following these events.

We cannot predict whether or to what extent damage caused by these events will affect our operations or the economies in regions where we operate. These adverse events could result in disruption of our purchasing or distribution capabilities, interruption of our business that exceeds our insurance coverage, our inability to collect from customers and increased operating costs. Our business or results of operations may be adversely affected by these and other negative effects of these events.

We have a substantial amount of goodwill and other intangible assets recorded on our balance sheet, partly because of acquisitions and business combination transactions. The amortization of acquired intangible assets will reduce our future reported earnings. Furthermore, if our goodwill or other intangible assets become impaired, we may be required to recognize non-cash charges that would reduce our income.

As of December 31, 2017, we had  $854 million of goodwill and other intangibles recorded on our consolidated balance sheet. A substantial portion of these intangible assets results from our use of purchase accounting in connection with the acquisitions we have made over the past several years. In accordance with the purchase accounting method, the excess of the cost of an acquisition over the fair value of identifiable tangible and intangible assets is assigned to goodwill. The amortization expense associated with our identifiable intangible assets will have a negative effect on our future reported earnings. Many other companies, including many of our competitors, may not have the significant acquired intangible assets that we have because they may not have participated in recent acquisitions and business combination transactions similar to ours. Thus, the amortization of identifiable intangible assets may not negatively affect their reported earnings to the same degree as ours.

Additionally, under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, goodwill and certain other indefinite-lived intangible assets are not amortized, but must be reviewed for possible impairment annually, or more often in certain circumstances where events indicate that the asset values are not recoverable. These reviews could result in an earnings charge for impairment, which would reduce our net income even though there would be no impact on our underlying cash flow. 

We face risks associated with conducting business in markets outside of North America.

We currently conduct substantial business in countries outside of North America. In addition, we are evaluating the possibility of establishing distribution networks in certain other foreign countries, particularly in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America. We could be materially and adversely affected by economic, legal, political and regulatory developments in the countries in which we do business in the future or in which we expand our business, particularly those countries which have historically experienced a high degree of political or economic instability. Examples of risks inherent in such non-North American activities include:

If we begin doing business in a foreign country in which we do not presently operate, we may also face difficulties in operations and diversion of management time in connection with establishing our business there.

We are subject to U.S. and other anti-corruption laws, trade controls, economic sanctions, and similar laws and regulations, including those in the jurisdictions where we operate. Our failure to comply with these laws and regulations could subject us to civil, criminal and administrative penalties and harm our reputation.

Doing business on a worldwide basis requires us to comply with the laws and regulations of the U.S. government and various foreign jurisdictions. These laws and regulations place restrictions on our operations, trade practices, partners and investment decisions. In particular, our operations are subject to U.S. and foreign anti-corruption and trade control laws and regulations, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), export controls and economic sanctions programs, including those administered by the U.S. Treasury

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Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”). As a result of doing business in foreign countries and with foreign partners, we are exposed to a heightened risk of violating anti-corruption and trade control laws and sanctions regulations.

The FCPA prohibits us from providing anything of value to foreign officials for the purposes of obtaining or retaining business or securing any improper business advantage. It also requires us to keep books and records that accurately and fairly reflect the Company’s transactions. As part of our business, we may deal with state-owned business enterprises, the employees of which are considered foreign officials for purposes of the FCPA. In addition, the provisions of the United Kingdom Bribery Act (the “Bribery Act”) extend beyond bribery of foreign public officials and also apply to transactions with individuals that a government does not employ. The provisions of the Bribery Act are also more onerous than the FCPA in a number of other respects, including jurisdiction, non-exemption of facilitation payments and penalties. Some of the international locations in which we operate lack a developed legal system and have higher than normal levels of corruption. Our continued expansion outside the U.S., including in developing countries, and our development of new partnerships and joint venture relationships worldwide, could increase the risk of FCPA, OFAC or Bribery Act violations in the future.

Economic sanctions programs restrict our business dealings with certain sanctioned countries, persons and entities. In addition, because we act as a distributor, we face the risk that our customers might further distribute our products to a sanctioned person or entity, or an ultimate end-user in a sanctioned country, which might subject us to an investigation concerning compliance with OFAC or other sanctions regulations.

Violations of anti-corruption and trade control laws and sanctions regulations are punishable by civil penalties, including fines, denial of export privileges, injunctions, asset seizures, debarment from government contracts and revocations or restrictions of licenses, as well as criminal fines and imprisonment. We have established policies and procedures designed to assist our compliance with applicable U.S. and international anti-corruption and trade control laws and regulations, including the FCPA, the Bribery Act and trade controls and sanctions programs that OFAC administers, and have trained our employees to comply with these laws and regulations. However, there can be no assurance that all of our employees, consultants, agents or other associated persons will not take actions in violation of our policies and these laws and regulations, and that our policies and procedures will effectively prevent us from violating these regulations in every transaction in which we may engage or provide a defense to any alleged violation. In particular, we may be held liable for the actions that our local, strategic or joint venture partners take inside or outside of the United States, even though our partners may not be subject to these laws. Such a violation, even if our policies prohibit it, could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, various state and municipal governments, universities and other investors maintain prohibitions or restrictions on investments in companies that do business with sanctioned countries, persons and entities, which could adversely affect the market for our common stock and other securities.

We face risks associated with international instability and geopolitical developments.

In some countries, there is an increased chance for economic, legal or political changes that may adversely affect the performance of our services, sale of our products or repatriation of our profits. We do not know the impact that these regulatory, geopolitical and other factors may have on our business in the future and any of these factors could adversely affect us.

We are exposed to risks relating to evaluations of controls required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the “Sarbanes-Oxley Act”).

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires us to annually evaluate our internal controls systems over financial reporting. This is not a static process as we may change our processes each year or acquire new companies that have different controls than our existing controls. Upon completion of this process each year, we may identify control deficiencies of varying degrees of severity under applicable U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB”) rules and regulations that remain unremediated. We are required to report, among other things, control deficiencies that constitute a “material weakness” or changes in internal controls that, or that are reasonably likely to, materially affect internal controls over financial reporting. A “material weakness” is a significant deficiency or combination of significant deficiencies in internal control over financial reporting that results in a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis.

We could suffer a loss of confidence in the reliability of our financial statements if we or our independent registered public accounting firm reports a material weakness in our internal controls, if we do not develop and maintain effective controls and procedures or if we are otherwise unable to deliver timely and reliable financial information. Any loss of confidence in the reliability of our financial statements or other negative reaction to our failure to develop timely or adequate disclosure controls and procedures or internal controls could result in a decline in the price of our common stock. In addition, if we fail to remedy any material weakness, our financial statements may be inaccurate, we may face restricted access to the capital markets and our stock price may be adversely affected.

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We do not currently intend to pay dividends to our common stockholders in the foreseeable future.

It is uncertain when, if ever, we will declare dividends to our common stockholders. We do not currently intend to pay dividends in the foreseeable future. Our ability to pay dividends is constrained by our holding company structure under which we are dependent on our subsidiaries for payments. Additionally, we and our subsidiaries are parties to credit agreements which restrict our ability and their ability to pay dividends. See “Item 5—Market for the Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities” and “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Liquidity and Capital Resources”.

Compliance with and changes in laws and regulations in the countries in which we operate could have a significant financial impact and affect how and where we conduct our operations.

We have operations in the U.S. and in 21 countries.  Expected and unexpected changes in the business and legal environments in the countries in which we operate can impact us. Compliance with and changes in laws, regulations and other legal and business issues could impact our ability to manage our costs and to meet our earnings goals. Compliance related matters could also limit our ability to do business in certain countries. Changes that could have a significant cost to us include new legislation, new regulations, or a differing interpretation of existing laws and regulations, changes in tax law or tax rates, the unfavorable resolution of tax assessments or audits by various taxing authorities, changes in trade and other treaties that lead to differing tariffs and trade rules, the expansion of currency exchange controls, export controls or additional restrictions on doing business in countries subject to sanctions in which we operate or intend to operate.  For instance, we have provisionally accounted for changes from the recently enacted U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017; however, this provisional accounting is subject to change based on our continued assessment of the impact of the law and any changes by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department on the interpretation and application of the law.  Similarly, the European Union and its constituent countries have recently implemented the General Data Protection Regulation, which is applicable to certain European countries in which we operate.  Changing law and regulation can impact our operations and adversely affect us.

ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS 

Not applicable.

ITEM  2.PROPERTIES

In North America, we operate a hub and spoke model that is centered around our 10 distribution centers in the U.S. and Canada with 127 branch locations which have inventory and local employees and house 14 valve and engineering service centers. Our U.S. network is comprised of 102 branch locations and nine distribution centers. We own our Charleston, WV corporate office and our Nitro, WV and our Houston, TX (Darien Street) distribution centers and lease the remaining seven distribution centers. In Canada, we have 25 branch locations and we own our one distribution center in Nisku, Alberta, Canada. We own less than 10% of our branch locations as we primarily lease the facilities.

Outside North America, we operate through a network of 50 branch locations located throughout Europe, Asia, Australasia, the Middle East and Caspian, including six distribution centers in the United Kingdom, Norway, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and Australia. Thirteen valve and engineering service centers are housed within our distribution centers and branch locations. We own our Brussels, Belgium location, and the remainder of our locations are leased.

Our Company maintains its principal executive office at 1301 McKinney Street, Suite 2300, Houston, Texas, 77010 and also maintains a corporate office in Charleston, West Virginia.  These locations have corporate functions such as executive management, accounting, human resources, legal, marketing, supply chain management, business development and information technology.

ITEM  3.LEGAL PROCEEDINGS 

From time to time, we have been subject to various claims and involved in legal proceedings incidental to the nature of our businesses. We maintain insurance coverage to reduce financial risk associated with certain of these claims and proceedings. It is not possible to predict the outcome of these claims and proceedings. However, in our opinion, there are no pending legal proceedings that upon resolution are likely to have a material effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

Also, from time to time, in the ordinary course of our business, our customers may claim that the products that we distribute are either defective or require repair or replacement under warranties that either we or the manufacturer may provide to the customer. These proceedings are, in the opinion of management, ordinary and routine matters incidental to our normal business. Our purchase orders with our suppliers generally require the manufacturer to indemnify us against any product liability claims, leaving the manufacturer ultimately responsible for these claims. In many cases, state, provincial or foreign law provides protection to distributors for these sorts of claims, shifting the responsibility to the manufacturer. In some cases, we could be required to repair or replace the products for the benefit of our customer and seek our recovery from the manufacturer for our expense. In the opinion of management, the

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ultimate disposition of these claims and proceedings are not expected to have a material adverse effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

For information regarding asbestos cases in which we are a defendant and other claims and proceedings, see “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Contractual Obligations, Commitments and Contingencies—Legal Proceedings” and “Note 16—Commitments and Contingencies” to our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this report.

ITEM  4.MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES 

Not applicable.  

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EXECUTIVE OFFICERS OF THE REGISTRANT 



The name, age, period of service and the title of each of our executive officers as of February 16, 2018 are listed below.



Andrew R. Lane, age 58, has served as our president and chief executive officer (“CEO”) since September 2008.  He has also served as a director of MRC Global Inc. since September 2008 and was chairman of the board from December 2009 to April 2016. From December 2004 to December 2007, he served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Halliburton Company, where he was responsible for Halliburton’s overall operational performance. Prior to that, he held a variety of leadership roles within Halliburton. Mr. Lane received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Southern Methodist University in 1981 (cum laude). He also completed the Advanced Management Program (“A.M.P.”) at Harvard Business School in 2000.



James E. Braun, age 58, has served as our executive vice president and chief financial officer since November 2011. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Braun served as chief financial officer of Newpark Resources, Inc. since 2006. Newpark provides drilling fluids and other products and services to the oil and gas exploration and production industry, both inside and outside of the U.S. Before joining Newpark, Mr. Braun was chief financial officer of Baker Oil Tools, one of the largest divisions of Baker Hughes Incorporated, a leading provider of drilling, formation evaluation, completion and production products and services to the worldwide oil and gas industry. From 1998 until 2002, he was vice president, finance and administration of Baker Petrolite, the oilfield specialty chemical business division of Baker Hughes.  Previously, he served as vice president and controller of Baker Hughes.  Mr. Braun is a CPA and was formerly a partner with Deloitte & Touche. Mr. Braun received a B.A. in accounting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.



Daniel J. Churay, age 55, has served as our executive vice president –  corporate affairs, general counsel and corporate secretary since May 2012. In his current role, Mr. Churay manages the Company’s human resources, legal, risk and compliance, external and government affairs and certain shared services functions. He also acts as corporate secretary to the Company’s board of directors. Prior to May 2012, Mr. Churay served as executive vice president and general counsel since August 2011 and as our corporate secretary since November 2011. From December 2010 to June 2011, he served as president and CEO of Rex Energy Corporation, an independent oil and gas company. From September 2002 to December 2010, Mr. Churay served as executive vice president, general counsel and secretary of YRC Worldwide Inc., a transportation and logistics company. Mr. Churay received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Texas and a juris doctorate from the University of Houston Law Center, where he was a member of the Law Review.



Steinar Aasland, age 52, is our senior vice president of international operations since August 2015.  Prior to that role, he served as our senior vice president – Europe since April 2014.  Before that, he was the CEO of Stream AS, which was acquired by MRC Global in 2014, and was responsible for all business activities of its three subsidiaries, Teamtrade, Solberg & Andersen and Energy Piping.  Mr. Aasland has more than 20 years of executive management experience in the PVF industry.  Mr. Aasland currently serves as the Chairman of the Board for the Stavanger Chamber of Commerce.  He is a mechanical engineer and holds a masters degree in strategy and management from BI Norwegian Business School.



Grant Bates, age 46,  is our senior vice president of operational excellence and chief information officer since April 2016. In this role, he is responsible for our global quality, safety, health and environment (QHSE) and our transportation, warehouse operations, business processes and customer implementation teams and information systems.    Mr. Bates previously led our Canada region since March 2014 and served as regional vice president of the Australasian region since March 2012. Mr. Bates joined MRC Global in March 2012 through the acquisition of OneSteel Piping Systems. Prior to the acquisition, Mr. Bates served as the National Manager of OneSteel Piping Systems. He has more than a decade of experience in manufacturing and distribution in a variety of management roles, including several years as a business analyst and consulting engineer. Mr. Bates holds a B.E. in mechanical engineering from the University of Newcastle, a graduate diploma in management and a master of business administration from Deakin University.



John L. Bowhay, age 52, is our senior vice president – supply chain management, valve and technical product sales since August 2015.  He previously served as senior vice president of Asia Pacific and Middle East operations since August 2014.  Before that, Mr. Bowhay served as vice president of European operations since August 2013.  Prior to this role, Mr. Bowhay served as the managing director for our United Kingdom operations and prior to that role, he was the vice president of sales in the U.K.  He brings more than 31 years of industry experience and valve expertise to the MRC Global team.  Mr. Bowhay attended the London Business School.



G. Tod Moss, age 56, is our senior vice president of U.S. Western Region and Canada operations since April 2016. Since 2001, Mr. Moss has held multiple operational leadership positions at our Company. He has been involved in opening and expanding many of our service locations in the Rockies, Alaska and North Dakota, as well as our Cheyenne, Tulsa, Odessa and Bakersfield regional distribution centers. Prior to these roles, Mr. Moss was the branch manager in Salt Lake City, Utah from 1993 – 2001, and served as assistant product manager of tubular products from 1991-1993. His early career included various field positions including inside sales, outside sales and responsibility for coordinating the line pipe sales and inventory level in the Western U.S.  Mr. Moss began with Vinson Supply in 1984, which was later acquired by Red Man Pipe & Supply (a predecessor to the Company). Over the course of his

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career, he has been involved in integrating the key acquisitions of Wesco Equipment, Dresser Oil Tools and Chaparral Supply. Mr. Moss attended the University of Utah.



Robert W. Stein,  age 59, is our senior vice president of business development since April 2016. He previously led our downstream and integrated supply teams. Prior to that, Mr. Stein led our U.S. Southwestern region operations. He has been part of MRC Global since 1984 and has served in a variety of roles including regional and branch management, downstream business development, project services and integrated supply. Mr. Stein received a B.B.A. in business management from Sam Houston State University.



Karl W. Witt, age, 57, is our senior vice president of U.S. Eastern Region and Gulf Coast operations since April 2016. Prior to that, he served in a variety of roles including seven years as regional vice president of the Eastern region and seven years as regional vice president of the Midwest sub-region as well as warehouse manager, outside sales representative, branch manager and vice president of operations with Joliet Valves, which was acquired by McJunkin Red Man Corporation (a predecessor to the Company) in 2001. Mr. Witt attended South Suburban College in Chicago.



Elton Bond, age 42, has served as our senior vice president and chief accounting officer since May 2011.  From September 2009 to May 2011, he served as senior vice president and treasurer.  Prior to that, he served as vice president of finance and compliance since December 2008. Before that, Mr. Bond was the director of finance and compliance since January 2007.  He started his career with MRC Global as the acquisition development manager in April 2006.  Prior to joining MRC Global, Mr. Bond was employed with Ernst & Young LLP from 1997 to 2006, serving in a variety of roles, including senior manager of assurance and advisory business services. Mr. Bond received a B.B.A. from Marshall University in 1997.  He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and a member of the West Virginia Society of CPAs.

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PART II

ITEM  5.MARKET FOR THE REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES 

MRC Global Inc. common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE’) under the symbol “MRC”. The following table illustrates the high and low sales prices as reported by the NYSE for the two most recent years by quarter: 





As of February  9, 2018, there were 294 holders of record of the Company’s common stock.

Our board of directors has not declared any dividends on common stock during 2017 or 2016 and currently has no intention to declare any dividends.

The Company’s Global ABL Facility, Term Loan and our 6.5% Series A Convertible Perpetual Preferred Stock restrict our ability to declare cash dividends under certain circumstances. Any future dividends declared would be at the discretion of our board of directors and would depend on our financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, contractual obligations, the terms of our financing agreements at the time a dividend is considered, and other relevant factors.



Issuer Purchases of Securities 





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PERFORMANCE GRAPH

The graph below compares the cumulative total shareholder return on our common stock to the S&P 500 Index and the Oil Service Sector Index. The total shareholder return assumes $100 invested on December 31, 2012, in MRC Global Inc., the S&P 500 Index and the Oil Service Sector Index. It also assumes reinvestment of all dividends. The results shown in the graph below are not necessarily indicative of future performance.

Comparison of Cumulative Total Return 

 



This information shall not be deemed to be ‘‘soliciting material’’ or to be ‘‘filed’’ with the SEC or subject to Regulation 14A (17 CFR 240.14a-1-240.14a-104), other than as provided in Item 201(e) of Regulation S-K, or to the liabilities of Section 18 of the Exchange Act (15 U.S.C. 78r).

 

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ITEM 6. SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA 

The selected financial data presented below have been derived from the consolidated financial statements of MRC Global Inc. that have been prepared using accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America which have been audited by Ernst & Young LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm. This data should be read in conjunction with “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and the consolidated financial statements, related notes and other financial information included elsewhere in this report.  











(1)Working capital is defined as current assets less current liabilities.

(2)Includes current portion of long-term debt.

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ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS 

You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations in conjunction with our financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this report. This discussion and analysis contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Our actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including, but not limited to, those set forth under “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” and “Item 1A—Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this report.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations (as well as other sections of this Annual Report on Form 10-K) contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”).  Forward-looking statements include those preceded by, followed by or including the words “will,” “expect,” “intended,” “anticipated,” “believe,” “project,” “forecast,” “propose,” “plan,” “estimate,” “enable,” and similar expressions, including, for example, statements about our business strategy, our industry, our future profitability, growth in the industry sectors we serve, our expectations, beliefs, plans, strategies, objectives, prospects and assumptions, and estimates and projections of future activity and trends in the oil and natural gas industry. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. These statements are based on management’s expectations that involve a number of business risks and uncertainties, any of which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, most of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond our control, including the factors described under “Item 1A - Risk Factors,” that may cause our actual results and performance to be materially different from any future results or performance expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among other things: 

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Undue reliance should not be placed on our forward-looking statements. Although forward-looking statements reflect our good faith beliefs, reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements because they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from anticipated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise, except to the extent law requires.

Overview

We are the largest global industrial distributor, based on sales, of pipe, valves, and fittings (“PVF”) and related products and services to the energy industry and hold a leading position in our industry across each of the upstream (exploration, production and extraction of underground oil and natural gas), midstream (gathering and transmission of oil and natural gas, natural gas utilities and the storage and distribution of oil and natural gas) and downstream (crude oil refining, petrochemical and chemical, processing and general industrials) sectors. Our business is segregated into three geographic reportable segments, consisting of our U.S., Canada and International operations. We serve our customers from approximately 300 service locations. We offer a wide array of PVF and oilfield supplies encompassing a complete line of products from our global network of approximately 12,000 suppliers to our more than 16,000 customers. We are diversified by geography, the industry sectors we serve and the products we sell. We seek to provide best-in-class service to our customers by satisfying the most complex, multi-site needs of many of the largest companies in the energy sector as their primary PVF supplier. We believe the critical role we play in our customers’ supply chain, together with our extensive product offering, broad global presence, customer-linked scalable information systems and efficient distribution capabilities, serve to solidify our long-standing customer relationships and drive our growth. As a result, we have an average relationship of over 25 years with our 25 largest customers.

Key Drivers of Our Business

Our revenue is predominantly derived from the sale of PVF and other oilfield and industrial supplies to the energy sector globally. Our business is, therefore, dependent upon both the current conditions and future prospects in the energy industry and, in particular, maintenance and expansionary operating and capital expenditures by our customers in the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors of the industry. Long-term growth in spending has been driven by several factors, including demand growth for petroleum and petroleum derived products, underinvestment in global energy infrastructure, growth in shale and unconventional exploration and production (“E&P”) activity, and anticipated strength in the oil, natural gas, refined products and petrochemical sectors. The outlook

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for future oil, natural gas, refined products and petrochemical PVF spending is influenced by numerous factors, including the following:



Recent Trends and Outlook

During 2017, the average oil price of West Texas Intermediate (“WTI”) increased to $50.80 per barrel compared to  $43.29 per barrel in 2016.  Natural gas prices increased to an average price of  $2.99/Mcf (Henry Hub) for 2017 compared to  $2.52/Mcf (Henry Hub) for 2016.  North American drilling rig activity increased 69% in 2017 compared to 2016.    U.S. well completions were up 41% in 2017 as compared to 2016.



In recent years, there has been an increase in the global supply of crude oil, including the contribution of U.S. shale oil, at a pace exceeding demand growth.  This increase combined with the initial hesitance on the part of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (“OPEC”) to curb production triggered a dramatic decline in oil prices that began in late 2014 and continued throughout 2016.  This low price environment, in turn, resulted in a dramatic decline in capital spending by our customers in each of our end market sectors, which directly impacted our business.  Major capital projects and discretionary spending were negatively impacted as customers were reluctant to invest or spend in an uncertain oil and gas commodity price environment.  However, our business rebounded with 20% sales growth in 2017, and we remain encouraged by stability in oil prices and sustained growth in drilling and completion activity.  Prominent exploration and production (“E&P”) spending surveys, which include many of our customers, indicate that 2018 spending will increase by high single digits globally including double digit growth in North America combined with more modest growth internationally.  In addition, a more favorable regulatory environment in 2017 as a result of the new Presidential administration in the United States, has benefited our business, particularly in the midstream sector.  And our domestic downstream sector has benefitted from the improved access to and stability in pricing of the necessary feedstocks available from increased, and in some cases, new upstream production.  We expect these favorable business trends to continue into 2018.



Our international segment has seen customer spending continue to decline, even as the U.S. and Canadian segment sales have increased from improved spending by our customer base in 2017. We took actions in 2016 to reduce our international footprint and cost structure and yet we have been unable to return to profitability.   As such, we took further action in the fourth quarter of 2017 to reduce our headcount and cost structure in the international segment, particularly in Norway. As a result of these actions in the fourth quarter of 2017, we recorded $20 million of charges, including $14 million of severance and restructuring costs and a $6 million write-down of inventory associated with  a decision to reduce our local presence in Iraq.  

On December 22, 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the “Tax Act”) was enacted.  Among the significant changes to the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, the Tax Act reduced the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21% effective January 1, 2018 and created a new dividend-exemption territorial system with a one-time transition tax on foreign earnings which were previously not taxed in the U.S.  The Tax Act also imposes a new base erosion and anti-abuse tax (“BEAT”) and global intangible low-taxed income ("GILTI") tax, and places new or additional limitations on the deductibility of executive compensation and interest expense.  As a result of this enacted change in tax laws, we recorded a provisional net tax benefit of $50 million in the fourth quarter of 2017.  The

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provisional tax benefit of $50 million includes a $57 million non-cash benefit related to the re-measurement of deferred income taxes offset by a $7 million transition tax expense which will be paid over a period of eight years.  We are still analyzing the full impact of the Tax Act and any refinements of our estimates will be reflected in income tax expense or benefit in 2018.  In addition, the reduction of the U.S. corporate tax rate is expected to lower our overall effective tax rate on a go forward basis.

We determine backlog by the amount of unshipped customer orders, either specific or general in nature, which the customer may revise or cancel in certain instances.  The table below details our backlog by segment (in millions):



*Amount excludes U.S. OCTG backlog $42 million for 2015.  We disposed of our U.S. OCTG product line in February 2016.

As of December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, approximately 14% and 28% of our ending backlog was associated with one customer in our U.S segment.  In addition, approximately 14% and 10% of our ending backlog for 2017 and 2016, respectively was associated with one customer in our International segment. In each case, these are related to significant ongoing customer projects.  There can be no assurance that the backlog amounts will ultimately be realized as revenue or that we will earn a profit on the backlog of orders, but we expect that substantially all of the sales in our backlog will be realized in 2018.

The following table shows key industry indicators for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015:  

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Results of Operations for the Years Ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015 

The breakdown of our sales by sector for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015 was as follows (in millions):





Year Ended December 31, 2017 Compared to the Year Ended December 31, 2016 

For the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, the following table summarizes our results of operations (in millions):



 

(1)Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of these measures to an equivalent GAAP measure, see pages 31-33 herein.

Sales. Sales include the revenue recognized from the sales of the products we distribute, services we provide and freight billings to customers, less cash discounts taken by customers in return for their early payment. Our sales were $3,646 million for the year ended December 31, 2017 as compared to $3,041 million for the year ended December 31, 2016.  The $605 million, or 20%, increase reflected an $11 million favorable impact from the strengthening of foreign currencies in areas where we operate compared to the U.S. dollar.

U.S. Segment—Our U.S. sales increased $563 million to $2,860 million for 2017 from $2,297 million for 2016. This 25% increase reflected a $152 million increase in the upstream sector, a $400 million increase in the midstream sector and an $11 million increase in the downstream sector.  The increase in the midstream sector is related to increased activity in the gas utility and transmission and gathering subsectors, including some large project activity with several of our customers.  The increase in the upstream sector is related to the increase in rig count and well completions.

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Canadian Segment—Our Canadian sales increased  $51 million to $294 million for 2017 from $243 million for 2016.  This 21% increase reflected a $59 million increase in the upstream business as a result of the increase in rig count and well completions.  Approximately $6 million, or 12%, of the total increase was a result of the stronger Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar.

International Segment—Our International sales decreased $9 million to $492 million for 2017 from $501 million for 2016.  This 2% decrease was due to a $58 million decline related to one of our project customers in Norway offset by a $50 million increase in the midstream sector related to an Australian line pipe sale. The strengthening in the foreign currencies in areas where we operate outside of the U.S. dollar increased sales by $5 million, or 1%. 

Gross Profit. Our gross profit was $582 million (16.0% of sales) for the year ended December 31, 2017 as compared to $468 million (15.4% of sales) for the year ended December 31, 2016.  The  $114 million increase was primarily attributable to the increase in sales volumes.  In addition, gross profit for 2017 and 2016 was negatively impacted by $6 million and $45 million, respectively, of inventory-related charges to reduce the carrying value of certain excess and obsolete inventory items to their realizable value. Gross profit for 2017 was also negatively impacted by higher product costs reflected in our last-in, first-out (“LIFO”) inventory costing methodology.  LIFO resulted in an increase in cost of sales of $28 million in 2017 compared to a  reduction of cost of sales of $14 million in 2016.  Excluding the impact of LIFO and the inventory-related charges, gross profit percentage improved 50 basis points as a result of sales mix changes. 

Certain purchasing costs and warehousing activities (including receiving, inspection, and stocking costs), as well as general warehousing expenses, are included in selling, general and administrative expenses and not in cost of sales. As such, our gross profit may not be comparable to others who may include these expenses as a component of costs of goods sold. Purchasing and warehousing activities costs approximated $29 million and $30 million for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016.  

Adjusted Gross Profit. Adjusted Gross Profit increased to $677 million (18.6% of sales) for 2017 from $523 million (17.2% of sales) for 2016,  an increase of  $154 million. Adjusted Gross Profit for 2017 and 2016, respectively, included the impact of the $6 million and $45 million of inventory-related charges discussed above.  Adjusted Gross Profit is a non-GAAP financial measure. We define Adjusted Gross Profit as sales, less cost of sales, plus depreciation and amortization, plus amortization of intangibles, and plus or minus the impact of our LIFO inventory costing methodology. We present Adjusted Gross Profit because we believe it is a useful indicator of our operating performance without regard to items, such as amortization of intangibles, that can vary substantially from company to company depending upon the nature and extent of acquisitions. Similarly, the impact of the LIFO inventory costing method can cause results to vary substantially from company to company depending upon whether they elect to utilize LIFO and depending upon which method they may elect. We use Adjusted Gross Profit as a key performance indicator in managing our business. We believe that gross profit is the financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles that is most directly comparable to Adjusted Gross Profit.

The following table reconciles Adjusted Gross Profit, a non-GAAP financial measure, with our gross profit, as derived from our consolidated financial statements (in millions):



Selling, General and Administrative (“SG&A”) Expenses. Costs such as salaries, wages, employee benefits, rent, utilities, communications, insurance, fuel and taxes (other than state and federal income taxes) that are necessary to operate our branch and corporate operations are included in SG&A. Also contained in this category are certain items that are non-operational in nature, including certain costs of acquiring and integrating other businesses. Our SG&A expenses were $536 million (14.7% of sales) for the year ended December 31, 2017 as compared to $524 million (17.2% of sales) for the year ended December 31, 2016.  SG&A for 2017 and 2016 included $14 million and $20 million, respectively, of severance and restructuring charges resulting from cost reduction efforts. SG&A for 2017 also included $20 million of expense related to the implementation of a new information technology system in the international segment as compared to $15 million of expense in 2016.  Excluding these amounts, SG&A increased $13 million which was attributable to volume-related increases.

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Operating Income (Loss). Operating income was $46 million for the year ended December 31, 2017, as compared to an operating loss of $56 million for the year ended December 31, 2016,  an improvement of $102 million.

U.S. Segment—Our U.S. segment had operating income of $67 million for 2017 as compared to an operating income of $6 million for 2016.  The $61 million improvement was primarily driven by higher sales.  Severance costs included in operating expenses were $6 million for 2016.  No such expenses were incurred in 2017. In addition, in 2016, we recorded $16 million of inventory-related charges to reduce the carrying value of certain obsolete and excess inventory items to their net realizable value.

Canadian Segment—Our Canadian segment had operating income of  $11 million for 2017 as compared to an operating loss of  $5 million for 2016. The $16 million improvement was primarily a result of higher sales volume.  In addition, in 2016 severance and restructuring expenses and inventory-related charges negatively impacted operating income by $6 million.

International Segment—Our International segment incurred an operating loss of $32 million for 2017 as compared to $57 million in 2016.  We recorded $6 million and $24 million of inventory-related charges to reduce the carrying value of certain obsolete and excess inventory items to their net realizable value in 2017 and 2016, respectively.  Severance costs included in operating expenses were $14 million and $13 million for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively. The improvement of $25 million was primarily due to these prior year charges combined with lower SG&A attributable to 2016 cost reduction measures including headcount reductions and associated severance costs. 

Interest Expense. Our interest expense was $31 million for the year ended December 31, 2017 as compared to $35 million for the year ended December 31, 2016.  The decrease can be attributed to lower average debt levels in 2017.

Other Expense. Our other expense increased to  $8 million for the year ended December 31, 2017 from $0 million for the year ended December 31, 2016.  In 2017, other expense included an $8 million charge for the write off of debt issuance costs associated with the refinancing of our Term Loan and Global ABL Facility.

Income Tax Benefit. Our income tax benefit was $43 million for the year ended December 31, 2017, as compared to benefit of  $8 million for the year ended December 31, 2016. In the fourth quarter of 2017, we recorded a provisional net tax benefit of $50 million associated with the passage of the Tax Act. Excluding the impact of the Tax Act and $20 million of severance and restructuring and inventory related charges within our International segment, for which there was very little tax benefit, our effective tax rate would have been 26%.  The 2016 effective tax rate of 9%  was lower than our customary effective tax rate as a result of the mix of pre-tax losses in all segments, including an increase in the relative significance of pre-tax losses in foreign jurisdictions where the losses have no corresponding tax benefit

Net Income (Loss). Our net income was $50 million for the year ended December 31, 2017 as compared to net loss of $83 million for the year ended December 31, 2016, an improvement of $133 million, reflecting improved income before taxes and the provisional tax benefit of $50 million associated with the Tax Act. 

Adjusted EBITDA.  Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, was $179 million for the year ended December 31, 2017, as compared to $75 million for the year ended December 31, 2016. Our Adjusted EBITDA increased  $104 million over that period primarily as a result of the factors noted above.

We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income plus interest, income taxes, depreciation and amortization, amortization of intangibles and certain other expenses, including non-cash expenses, (such as equity-based compensation, severance and restructuring, changes in the fair value of derivative instruments and asset impairments, including inventory) and plus or minus the impact of our LIFO inventory costing methodology.

We believe Adjusted EBITDA provides investors a helpful measure for comparing our operating performance with the performance of other companies that have different financing and capital structures or tax rates. We believe that net income is the financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles that is most directly comparable to Adjusted EBITDA.  

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The following table reconciles Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, with our net income (loss), as derived from our consolidated financial statements (in millions):



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Year Ended December 31, 2016 Compared to the Year Ended December 31, 2015



For the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015 the following table summarizes our results of operations (in millions):

(1)Adjusted Gross Profit and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of these measures to an equivalent GAAP measure, see pages 35-37 herein.

Sales. Our sales were $3,041 million for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to $4,529 million for the year ended December 31, 2015. The $1,488 million decrease reflected a $24 million impact of the decline in foreign currencies in areas where we operate compared to the U.S. dollar.

U.S. Segment—Our U.S. sales decreased $1,275 million to $2,297 million for 2016 from $3,572 million for 2015. This 36% decrease reflected a $698 million decrease in the upstream sector, a $329 million decrease in the midstream sector and a $248 million decrease in the downstream sector.  The decline in the upstream sector included a $287 million impact from the disposition of our U.S. OCTG product line. The remaining decrease in sales in 2016 as compared 2015 was caused by decreased customer spending for both maintenance, repair and operations (“MRO”) and projects, driven by the sustained low oil and natural gas prices and the resulting decline in rig count.

Canadian Segment—Our Canadian sales decreased $90 million to $243 million for 2016 from $333 million for 2015. This 27% decrease reflected a $79 million decrease in the upstream business also due to a decrease in customer spending. Approximately $10 million, or 11%, of the total decline was a result of the weaker Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar.

International Segment—Our International sales decreased $123 million to $501 million for 2016 from $624 million for 2015. This $123 million, or 20%, decrease reflected the combined impact of lower project activity and deferral of MRO expenditures particularly in Norway, Australia, the Netherlands, the U.K., and Singapore.  The impact of the decline in the foreign currencies in areas where we operate outside of the U.S. dollar accounted for $14 million, or 11%, of the total decline.

Gross Profit. Our gross profit was $468 million (15.4% of sales) for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to $786 million (17.4% of sales) for the year ended December 31, 2015. The $318 million decrease was primarily attributable to the reduction in sales volumes.  In addition, gross profit for 2016 was negatively impacted by $45 million of inventory-related charges to reduce the carrying value of certain excess and obsolete inventory items to their realizable value. Gross profit for 2016 benefited modestly from

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lower product costs reflected in our LIFO inventory costing methodology.  LIFO resulted in a reduction of cost of sales of $14 million and $53 million in 2016 and 2015, respectively.  Excluding the impact of LIFO and the inventory-related charges, gross profit percentage improved 20 basis points as a result of sales mix changes including the elimination of our lower margin OCTG product line.

Certain purchasing costs and warehousing activities (including receiving, inspection, and stocking costs), as well as general warehousing expenses, are included in selling, general and administrative expenses and not in cost of sales. As such, our gross profit may not be comparable to others who may include these expenses as a component of costs of goods sold. Purchasing and warehousing activities costs approximated $30 million and $37 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015.

Adjusted Gross Profit. Adjusted Gross Profit decreased to $523 million (17.2% of sales) for 2016 from $814 million (18.0% of sales) for 2015, a decrease of $291 million. Adjusted Gross Profit for 2016 included the impact of the $45 million of inventory-related charges discussed above.  Adjusted Gross Profit is a non-GAAP financial measure. We define Adjusted Gross Profit as sales, less cost of sales, plus depreciation and amortization, plus amortization of intangibles, and plus or minus the impact of our LIFO inventory costing methodology. We present Adjusted Gross Profit because we believe it is a useful indicator of our operating performance without regard to items, such as amortization of intangibles, that can vary substantially from company to company depending upon the nature and extent of acquisitions. Similarly, the impact of the LIFO inventory costing method can cause results to vary substantially from company to company depending upon whether they elect to utilize LIFO and depending upon which method they may elect. We use Adjusted Gross Profit as a key performance indicator in managing our business. We believe that gross profit is the financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles that is most directly comparable to Adjusted Gross Profit.

The following table reconciles Adjusted Gross Profit, a non-GAAP financial measure, with our gross profit, as derived from our consolidated financial statements (in millions):



Selling, General and Administrative (“SG&A”) Expenses.  Our SG&A expenses were $524 million (17.2% of sales) for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to $606 million (13.4% of sales) for the year ended December 31, 2015.  SG&A for 2016 and 2015 included $20 million and $14 million, respectively, of severance and restructuring charges resulting from cost reduction efforts.  SG&A for 2016 also included $15 million of expense related to the implementation of a new information technology system in the international segment as compared to $9 million of expense in 2015.  The full year 2016 reflected a $6 million favorable impact from foreign exchange rates compared to the full year of 2015.  Excluding these amounts, SG&A decreased $88 million which was attributable to volume-related declines and the cost reduction efforts we have made.



Goodwill and Intangibles Asset Impairment.    In December 2015, because of the continued decline in commodity prices and activity levels, we performed an assessment of current market conditions and our future long-term expectations of oil and gas markets and concluded it was more likely than not that the fair values of our reporting units were lower than their carrying values.  Our assessment took into consideration, among other things, significant further reductions in projected spending by our customers in 2016 and a more pessimistic long-term outlook for the price of oil and natural gas, and the resulting impact on our 2016 budget and long-term financial forecast.   As a result of this assessment, we completed an interim goodwill impairment test as of December 31, 2015.  This test resulted in an impairment charge of $292 million comprised of $109 million in our U.S. reporting unit and $183 million in our International reporting unit.  No such charges were incurred in 2016.



As a result of these same factors, we performed impairment tests of other intangible assets as well and incurred impairment charges of $128 million related to our indefinite-lived trade name within our U.S. segment and $42 million related to the customer base intangible assets within our International segment.  No such charges were incurred in 2016.

Operating Loss. Operating loss was $56 million for the year ended December 31, 2016, as compared to $282 million for the year ended December 31, 2015, an improvement of $226 million.

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U.S. Segment—Our U.S. segment had operating income of $6 million for 2016 as compared to an operating loss of $47 million for 2015. Excluding the $237 million of goodwill and intangible asset impairments in 2015, the decline of $184 million was primarily driven by lower revenue due to decreased customer spending offset by a reduction in SG&A expenses.  In addition, severance and restructuring expenses and inventory-related charges negatively impacted operating income by $22 million and $6 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Canadian Segment—Our Canadian segment incurred an operating loss of $5 million for 2016 as compared to operating income of $9 million for 2015. The decrease of $14 million reflected the decline in sales offset by corresponding reductions in SG&A.  Severance and restructuring expenses and inventory-related charges negatively impacted operating income by $6 million and $1 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

International Segment—Our International segment incurred an operating loss of $57 million for 2016 as compared to an operating loss of $244 million in 2015. Excluding the $225 million of goodwill and intangibles impairment charges in 2015, the $38 million decrease was a result of lower sales offset by corresponding reductions in SG&A. Severance and restructuring expenses and inventory-related charges negatively impacted operating income by $37 million and $7 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Interest Expense. Our interest expense was $35 million for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to $48 million for the year ended December 31, 2015.  The decrease can be attributed to lower average debt levels in 2016.

Other Expense. Our other expense decreased to $0 million for the year ended December 31, 2016 from $12 million for the year ended December 31, 2015. In 2015, other expense included $5 million of expense related to the disposition of our U.S. OCTG product line, a $3 million write off of debt issuance costs, foreign currency losses of $3 million, and a $3 million charge related to a litigation matter.  In 2016, we had no such charges.

Income Tax Benefit. Our income tax benefit was $8 million for the year ended December 31, 2016, as compared to benefit of $11 million for the year ended December 31, 2015. Our effective tax rates were 9% and 3% for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. These rates generally differ from the U.S. federal statutory rate of 35% as a result of state income taxes and differing, generally lower, foreign income tax rates.  The 2016 effective tax rate of 9% was lower than our customary effective tax rate as a result of the mix of pre-tax losses in all segments, including an increase in the relative significance of pre-tax losses in foreign jurisdictions where the losses have no corresponding tax benefit.  The 2015 effective tax rate of 3% was lower than our customary effective tax rate primarily due to the a non-tax deductible impairment charge combined with tax expense related to provisions for valuation allowances and the mix of income and losses in the various jurisdictions in which we operate.

Net Loss. Our net loss was $83 million for the year ended December 31, 2016 as compared to $331 million for the year ended December 31, 2015, an improvement of $248 million.

Adjusted EBITDA.  Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, was $75 million for the year ended December 31, 2016, as compared to $235 million for the year ended December 31, 2015. Our Adjusted EBITDA decreased $160 million over that period primarily as a result of the factors noted above.

We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income plus interest, income taxes, depreciation and amortization, amortization of intangibles and certain other expenses, including non-cash expenses, (such as equity-based compensation, severance and restructuring, changes in the fair value of derivative instruments and asset impairments, including inventory) and plus or minus the impact of our LIFO inventory costing methodology.



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We believe Adjusted EBITDA provides investors a helpful measure for comparing our operating performance with the performance of other companies that have different financing and capital structures or tax rates. We believe that net income is the financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles that is most directly comparable to Adjusted EBITDA. 



The following table reconciles Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, with our net loss, as derived from our consolidated financial statements (in millions):





Financial Condition and Cash Flows

Cash Flows

The following table sets forth our cash flows for the periods indicated below (in millions):





Operating Activities 

Net cash used in operating activities was $48 million in 2017 compared to $253 million provided by operations in 2016.  The decrease in cash provided by operations was primarily the result of working capital expansion in response to the increase in sales activity in 2017 as compared to a working capital contraction in 2016.  Working capital growth used cash of $152 million in 2017 compared to the working capital contraction providing cash of $231 million in 2016.  In particular, growth in accounts receivable utilized $118 million of cash in 2017 as a result of the 20% increase in sales relative to 2016 when accounts receivable contraction provided cash of $128 million.  Growth in inventory required to support higher sales levels utilized $168 million of cash in 2017 as compared to cash provided of $141 million in 2016. These uses of cash in 2017 were offset by $93 million generated from an increase in accounts payable, which was attributable to higher purchasing activities and the timing of payments to our suppliers.

Net cash provided by operating activities was $253 million in 2016 compared to $690 million provided by operations in 2015.  The decrease in cash provided by operations was primarily the result of reduced profitability combined with a reduction in the pace of working capital contraction in response to slowing sales. Working capital provided cash of $231 million in 2016 as compared to $586 million in 2015.  The 2016 decline in working capital cash flow was impacted most significantly by a $141 million and $128 million reduction in inventory and accounts receivable, respectively, caused by declining sales levels. 

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Investing Activities

Net cash used in investing activities was $27 million in 2017, compared to net cash provided by investing activities of  $16 million in 2016.  The $43 million increase in cash used in investing activities is the result of $48 million in proceeds from the 2016 disposition of our U.S. OCTG product line.  Our capital expenditures were $30 million and $33 million for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively.    

Net cash provided by investing activities was $16 million in 2016, compared to net cash used in investing activities of $41 million in 2015.  The $57 million increase in cash provided by investing activities is the result of $48 million in proceeds from the disposition of our U.S. OCTG product line.  Our capital expenditures were $33 million and $39 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. 

Financing Activities

Net cash provided by financing activities was $9 million in 2017, compared to net cash used in financing activities of $226 million in 2016.    Net proceeds on our Global ABL Facility totaled $129 million in 2017, compared to $0 million in the 2016.   In 2017 and 2016, we used $68 million and $95 million to fund purchases of our common stock, respectively. We used $24 million to fund dividends on our preferred stock in each of 2017 and 2016.  In the fourth quarter of 2016, we repaid $100 million of our Term Loan using available cash on hand.  In June 2015, we received $355 million of net proceeds related to the issuance of Series A Preferred Stock.  We used these proceeds to repay a portion of the outstanding borrowings under our Term Loan and our Global ABL Facility. 



Liquidity and Capital Resources

Our primary sources of liquidity consist of cash generated from our operating activities, existing cash balances and borrowings under our existing Global ABL Facility. At December 31, 2017, our total liquidity, including cash on hand, was $485 million.  Our ability to generate sufficient cash flows from our operating activities is primarily dependent on our sales of products to our customers at profits sufficient to cover our fixed and variable expenses. As of December 31, 2017 and 2016, we had cash and cash equivalents of  $48 million and  $109 million, respectively. As of December 31, 2017 and 2016,  $48 million and  $61 million of our cash and cash equivalents were maintained in the accounts of our various foreign subsidiaries and, if those amounts were transferred among countries or repatriated to the U.S., those amounts may be subject to additional tax liabilities, which would be recognized in our financial statements in the period during which the transfer decision was made. We currently have the intent and ability to indefinitely reinvest the cash held by our non-Canadian foreign subsidiaries and, pending further analysis of the impact of the Tax Act, there are currently no plans for the repatriation of those amounts. 

Our primary credit facilities consist of a seven-year Term Loan maturing in September 2024 with an original principal amount of $400 million and a five-year $800 million Global ABL Facility that provides $675 million in revolver commitments in the United States, $65 million in Canada, $18 million in Norway, $15 million in Australia, $13 million in the Netherlands, $7 million in the United Kingdom and $7 million in Belgium.    The Global ABL Facility, which was re-sized to $800 million from $1.05 billion in our September 2017 amendment, matures in September 2022.  The Global ABL Facility contains an accordion feature that allows us to increase the principal amount of the facility by up to $200 million, subject to securing additional lender commitments. As of December 31, 2017,  we had $129 million of outstanding borrowings and $437 million of Excess Availability, as defined  under this Global ABL Facility.    Availability is dependent on a borrowing base comprised of a percentage of eligible accounts receivable and inventory which is subject to redetermination from time to time.

Our credit ratings are below “investment grade” and, as such, could impact both our ability to raise new funds as well as the interest rates on our future borrowings. Our existing obligations restrict our ability to incur additional debt. We were in compliance with the covenants contained in our various credit facilities as of and during the year ended December 31, 2017.  



We believe our sources of liquidity will be sufficient to satisfy the anticipated cash requirements associated with our existing operations for at least the next twelve months. However, our future cash requirements could be higher than we currently expect as a result of various factors. Additionally, our ability to generate sufficient cash from our operating activities depends on our future performance, which is subject to general economic, political, financial, competitive and other factors beyond our control. We may from time to time seek to raise additional debt or equity financing in the public or private markets, based on market conditions. There can be no assurance that we will be able to raise any such financing on terms acceptable to us or at all. We may also seek, from time to time, depending on market conditions, to refinance certain categories of our debt, and we may seek to consummate equity offerings. Any such transaction would be subject to market conditions, compliance with all of our credit agreements, and various other factors.

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In November 2015, the Company’s board of directors authorized a share repurchase program for common stock up to $100 million, which was increased in November 2016 to $125 million.  During the first quarter of 2017, we purchased 859,830 shares of common stock at a total cost of $18 million, which completed the repurchase of all shares authorized under the program.  In total under this program, we purchased 8,537,410 shares at a total cost of $125 million. 

In October 2017, the Company’s board of directors authorized a new share repurchase program for common stock of up to $100 million.  The program is scheduled to expire December 31, 2018. The shares may be repurchased at management’s discretion in the open market.  Depending on market conditions and other factors, these repurchases may be commenced or suspended from time to time without prior notice.    During the fourth quarter of 2017, we purchased 3,214,316 shares at a total cost of $50 million. 



Contractual Obligations, Commitments and Contingencies

Contractual Obligations

The following table summarizes our minimum payment obligations as of December 31, 2017 relating to long-term debt, interest payments, capital leases, operating leases, purchase obligations and other long-term liabilities for the periods indicated (in millions):





(1)     Long-term debt is based on debt outstanding at December 31, 2017.  

(2)     Interest payments are based on interest rates in effect at December 31, 2017 and assume contractual amortization payments.

(3)     Purchase obligations reflect our commitments to purchase PVF products in the ordinary course of business. While our vendors often allow us to cancel these purchase orders without penalty, in certain cases cancellations may subject us to cancellation fees or penalties, depending on the terms of the contract.

We historically have been an acquisitive company. We expect to fund future acquisitions primarily from (i) borrowings, either the unused portion of our facilities or new debt issuances, (ii) cash provided by operations, or (iii) the issuance of additional equity in connection with the acquisitions.

Other Commitments

In the normal course of business with customers, vendors and others, we are contingently liable for performance under standby letters of credit and bid, performance and surety bonds. We were contingently liable for approximately $55 million of standby letters of credit, trade guarantees that banks issue and bid, and performance and surety bonds at December 31, 2017. Management does not expect any material amounts to be drawn on these instruments.

Legal Proceedings

Asbestos Claims.  We are one of many defendants in lawsuits that plaintiffs have brought seeking damages for personal injuries that exposure to asbestos allegedly caused. Plaintiffs and their family members have brought these lawsuits against a large volume of defendant entities as a result of the various defendants’ manufacture, distribution, supply or other involvement with asbestos, asbestos-containing products or equipment or activities that allegedly caused plaintiffs to be exposed to asbestos. These plaintiffs typically assert exposure to asbestos as a consequence of third-party manufactured products that the Company’s subsidiary, MRC Global (US) Inc., purportedly distributed. As of December 31, 2017, we are a named defendant in approximately 537 lawsuits involving approximately 1,153 claims.  No asbestos lawsuit has resulted in a judgment against us to date, with the majority being settled, dismissed or otherwise resolved. Applicable third-party insurance has substantially covered these claims, and insurance should continue to cover a substantial majority of existing and anticipated future claims. Accordingly, we have recorded a liability for our estimate of the most likely settlement of asserted claims and a related receivable from insurers for our estimated recovery, to the extent we believe that the amounts of recovery are probable.



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We annually conduct analyses of our asbestos-related litigation to estimate the adequacy of the reserve for pending and probable asbestos-related claims. Given these estimated reserves and existing insurance coverage that has been available to cover substantial portions of these claims, we believe that our current accruals and associated estimates relating to pending and probable asbestos-related litigation likely to be asserted over the next 15 years are currently adequate. This belief, however, relies on a number of assumptions, including: 





If any of these assumptions prove to be materially different in light of future developments, liabilities related to asbestos-related litigation may be materially different than amounts accrued or estimated. Further, while we anticipate that additional claims will be filed in the future, we are unable to predict with any certainty the number, timing and magnitude of such future claims. In our opinion, there are no pending legal proceedings that are likely to have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial statements.



Other Legal Claims and Proceedings.  From time to time, we have been subject to various claims and involved in legal proceedings incidental to the nature of our businesses. We maintain insurance coverage to reduce financial risk associated with certain of these claims and proceedings. It is not possible to predict the outcome of these claims and proceedings. However, in our opinion, there are no pending legal proceedings that are likely to have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial statements. See also “Note 16—Commitments and Contingencies” to the audited consolidated financial statements as of December 31, 2017.  



Product Claims.  From time to time, in the ordinary course of our business, our customers may claim that the products that we distribute are either defective or require repair or replacement under warranties that either we or the manufacturer may provide to the customer. These proceedings are, in the opinion of management, ordinary and routine matters incidental to our normal business. Our purchase orders with our suppliers generally require the manufacturer to indemnify us against any product liability claims, leaving the manufacturer ultimately responsible for these claims. In many cases, state, provincial or foreign law provides protection to distributors for these sorts of claims, shifting the responsibility to the manufacturer. In some cases, we could be required to repair or replace the products for the benefit of our customer and seek our recovery from the manufacturer for our expense. In our opinion, the likelihood that the ultimate disposition of any of these claims and legal proceedings will have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial statements is remote.



Weatherford Claim.  In addition to PVF, our Canadian subsidiary, Midfield Supply (“Midfield”), now known as MRC Global (Canada) ULC, also distributed progressive cavity pumps and related equipment (“PCPs”) under a distribution agreement with Weatherford Canada Partnership (“Weatherford”) within a certain geographical area located in southern Alberta, Canada.  In late 2005 and early 2006, Midfield hired new employees, including former Weatherford employees, as part of Midfield’s desire to expand its PVF business into northern Alberta.  Shortly thereafter, many of these employees left Midfield and formed a PCP manufacturing, distribution and service company named Europump Systems Inc. (“Europump”) in 2006.  The distribution agreement with Weatherford expired in 2006.  Midfield supplied Europump with PVF products that Europump distributed along with PCP pumps.  In April 2007, Midfield purchased Europump’s distribution branches and began distributing and servicing Europump PCPs.



Pursuant to a complaint that Weatherford filed on April 11, 2006 in the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta, Judicial Bench of Edmonton (Action No. 060304628), Weatherford sued Europump, three of Europump’s part suppliers, Midfield, certain current and former employees of Midfield, and other related entities, asserting a host of claims including breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, misappropriation of confidential information related to the PCPs, unlawful interference with economic relations and conspiracy.  The Company denies these allegations and contends that Midfield’s expansion and subsequent growth was the result of fair competition. 



In June 2017, Midfield and Europump and certain individual defendants and related entities settled the case.  As part of the settlement, MRC Global (Canada) ULC agreed to pay $6 million in exchange for a release from Weatherford and agreement to dismiss the case. 

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The Company had previously recorded a reserve of $3 million.  As a result of the settlement, an additional charge of $3 million was recorded in the second quarter of 2017.



Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

We do not have any material “off-balance sheet arrangements” as such term is defined within the rules and regulations of the SEC.

Critical Accounting Estimates

We prepare our consolidated financial statements in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. To apply these principles, management must make judgments and assumptions and develop estimates based on the best available information at the time. Actual results may differ based on the accuracy of the information utilized and subsequent events. The notes to our audited financial statements included elsewhere in this report describe our accounting policies. These critical accounting policies could materially affect the amounts recorded in our financial statements. We believe the following describes significant judgments and estimates used in the preparation of our consolidated financial statements:

Inventories: Our U.S. inventories are valued at the lower of cost (principally using the LIFO method) or market. We record an estimate each quarter, if necessary, for the expected annual effect of inflation and estimated year-end inventory balances. These estimates are adjusted to actual results determined at year-end. Our inventories that are held outside of the U.S., totaling $168 million and $164 million at December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, were valued at the lower of weighted-average cost or estimated net realizable value.  

Under the LIFO inventory valuation method, changes in the cost of inventory are recognized in cost of sales in the current period even though these costs may have been incurred at significantly different values. Since the Company values most of its inventory using the LIFO inventory costing methodology, a rise in inventory costs has a negative effect on operating results, while, conversely, a fall in inventory costs results in a benefit to operating results.

We determine reserves for inventory based on historical usage of inventory on-hand, assumptions about future demand and market conditions.  Customers rely on the company to stock specialized items for certain projects and other needs.  Therefore, the estimated carrying value of inventory depends upon demand driven by oil and gas spending activity, which in turn depends on oil and gas prices, the general outlook for economic growth worldwide, political stability in major oil and gas producing areas, and the potential obsolescence of various inventory items we sell. 

Goodwill and Intangible Assets: We record goodwill and intangible assets in conjunction with acquisitions that we make. These assets comprise 36% of our total assets as of December 31, 2017.  We record goodwill as the excess of cost over the fair value of net assets that we acquire.  We record intangible assets at fair value at the date of acquisition and amortize the value of intangible assets over the assets’ estimated useful lives unless we determine that an asset has an indefinite life.  We make significant judgments and estimates in both calculating the fair value of these assets and determining their estimated useful lives. The carrying values of our goodwill and intangible assets, by reporting unit, were as follows as of December 31, 2017 (in millions):





Impairment of Long-Lived Assets: 

Our long-lived assets consist primarily of:

The carrying value of these assets is subject to an impairment test when circumstances indicate a possible impairment.  These circumstances would include significant decreases in our operating results and significant changes in market demand for our products and services. When events and circumstances indicate a possible impairment, we assess recoverability from future operations using an undiscounted cash flow analysis, derived from the lowest appropriate asset group.  If the carrying value exceeds the undiscounted cash flows, we would recognize an impairment charge to the extent that the carrying value exceeds the fair value.   

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We group customer base intangible assets on a basis consistent with our reporting units. We determine the fair value of customer base intangibles using a discounted cash flow analysis.  The most significant factor in the determination of the fair value of our customer base intangibles is forecasted sales to our customers including, in particular, our largest customers.   Possible indicators of impairment could include the following:

Although we determined there were no impairments in 2017 and 2016, significant decreases in our forecasted sales, particularly with our largest customers, could result in future impairments of our customer base intangible assets.

The carrying value of property, plant and equipment as of December 31, 2017 was  $147 million, or 6% of total assets.  This amount was comprised of $109 million, $15 million and $23 million in our U.S., Canada and International segments, respectively.  We group property, plant and equipment and evaluate it for recoverability at a country or regional level.  We determine the fair value of property, plant and equipment based on appraisal procedures which involve both market and cost techniques depending on the nature of the specific assets and the availability of market information.  In 2017, no indicators of property, plant and equipment impairment were present.  Based on the nature of our property, plant and equipment and the reduction in carrying value each year through depreciation, we believe future impairments are not likely.

When testing for the impairment of the value of long-lived assets, we make forecasts of:

We make these forecasts using the best available information at the time, including information regarding current market conditions and customer spending forecasts.  While we believe our assumptions and estimates are reasonable, because of the volatile nature of the energy industry, actual results may differ materially from the projected results which could result in the recognition of additional impairment charges. Factors that could lead to actual results differing materially from projected results include, among other things, further reductions of oil and natural gas prices and changes in projected sales growth rates. 

Impairment of Goodwill and Other Indefinite-Lived Intangible Assets: We test goodwill and intangible assets with indefinite useful lives for impairment annually, or more frequently if events and circumstances indicate that impairment may exist. We evaluate goodwill for impairment at four reporting units (U.S. Eastern Region and Gulf Coast, U.S. Western Region, Canada and International). Within each reporting unit, we have elected to aggregate the component countries and regions into a single reporting unit based on their similar economic characteristics, products, customers, suppliers, methods of distribution and the manner in which we operate each segment. We perform our annual tests for indications of goodwill impairment as of October 1st of each year, updating on an interim basis should indications of impairment exist.

When we perform the goodwill impairment test, we compare the carrying value of the reporting unit that has the goodwill with the estimated fair value of that reporting unit. If the carrying value is more than the estimated fair value, a second step is performed.  In the second step, we calculate the implied fair value of goodwill by deducting the fair value of all tangible and intangible net assets of the reporting unit from the estimated fair value of the reporting unit. We recognize impairment losses to the extent that recorded goodwill exceeds implied goodwill. Our impairment methodology uses discounted cash flow and multiples of cash earnings valuation techniques, acquisition control premium and valuation comparisons to similar businesses to determine the fair value of a reporting unit.  Each of these methods involves Level 3 unobservable market inputs and require us to make certain assumptions and estimates regarding:

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We make these forecasts using the best available information at the time including information regarding current market conditions and customer spending forecasts.  While we believe that these assumptions and estimates are reasonable, because of the volatile nature of the energy industry, actual results may differ materially from the projected results which could result in the recognition of additional impairment charges.  Factors that could lead to actual results differing materially from projected results include, among other things:

In connection with our annual goodwill impairment test as of October 1, 2017, we tested the carrying value of goodwill for our U.S. and International reporting units.  Our Canada reporting unit has no goodwill.  No goodwill impairments were indicated as a result of those tests as the estimated fair value of each of our reporting units substantially exceeded their carrying value.

Intangible assets with indefinite useful lives are recorded in our U.S. segment.  We test these assets for impairment annually or more frequently if events and circumstances indicate that impairment may exist. This test compares the carrying value of the indefinite-lived intangible assets with their estimated fair value. If the carrying value is more than the estimated fair value, we recognize impairment losses in an amount equal to the excess of the carrying value over the estimated fair value. Our impairment methodology uses discounted cash flow and estimated royalty rate valuation techniques. Utilizing these valuation methods, we make certain assumptions and estimates regarding:



As with the goodwill impairment test described above, while we believe that our assumptions and estimates are reasonable, because of the volatile nature of the energy industry, actual results may differ materially from the projected results which could result in the recognition of additional impairment charges.  The estimated fair value of our indefinite-lived intangible assets substantially exceeded their carrying value.

Income Taxes: We use the liability method for determining our income taxes, under which current and deferred tax liabilities and assets are recorded in accordance with enacted tax laws and rates. Under this method, the amounts of deferred tax liabilities and assets at the end of each period are determined using the tax rate expected to be in effect when taxes are actually paid or recovered.

Deferred tax assets and liabilities are recorded for differences between the financial reporting and tax bases of assets and liabilities using the tax rate expected to be in effect when the taxes will actually be paid or refunds received. The effect on deferred tax assets and liabilities of a change in tax rates is recognized in earnings in the period that includes the enactment date. A valuation allowance to reduce deferred tax assets is established when it is more likely than not that some portion or all of the deferred tax assets will not be realized.

In determining the need for valuation allowances and our ability to utilize our deferred tax assets, we consider and make judgments regarding all the available positive and negative evidence, including the timing of the reversal of deferred tax liabilities, estimated future taxable income, ongoing, prudent and feasible tax planning strategies and recent financial results of operations.  The amount of the deferred tax assets considered realizable however could be adjusted in the future if objective negative evidence in the form of cumulative losses is no longer present in certain jurisdictions and additional weight may be given to subjective evidence such as our projections for growth. 

Our tax provision is based upon our expected taxable income and statutory rates in effect in each country in which we operate. We are subject to the jurisdiction of numerous domestic and foreign tax authorities, as well as to tax agreements and treaties among these governments. Determination of taxable income in any jurisdiction requires the interpretation of the related tax laws and regulations and the use of estimates and assumptions regarding significant future events such as the amount, timing and character of deductions, permissible revenue recognition methods under the tax law and the sources and character of income and tax credits. Changes in tax laws, regulations, agreements and treaties, foreign currency exchange restrictions or our level of operations or profitability in each taxing jurisdiction could have an impact on the amount of income taxes we provide during any given year.

A tax benefit from an uncertain tax position may be recognized when it is more likely than not that the position will be sustained upon examination, including any related appeals or litigation processes, on the basis of the technical merits. We adjust these liabilities when

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our judgment changes as a result of the evaluation of new information not previously available. Because of the complexity of some of these uncertainties, the ultimate resolution may result in a payment that is materially different from our current estimate of the tax liabilities. These differences will be reflected as increases or decreases to income tax expense in the period in which the new information is available.

On December 22, 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the “Tax Act”) was enacted.  Among the significant changes to the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, the Tax Act reduced the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21% effective January 1, 2018 and created a new dividend-exemption territorial system with a one-time transition tax on foreign earnings which were previously not taxed in the U.S. 

In December 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission staff issued Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 118 (“SAB 118”), which addresses how a company recognizes provisional amounts when a company does not have all the necessary information available in reasonable detail to complete its accounting for the effect of the changes in the Tax Act. Under SAB 118, a company recognizes provisional amounts for income tax effects of the Tax Act for which the accounting is incomplete but a reasonable estimate can be determined. The measurement period for adjusting provisional amounts ends when a company has analyzed the information necessary to finalize its accounting, but cannot extend beyond one year.

We have determined a reasonable estimate for the re-measurement of our deferred tax assets and liabilities as of December 31, 2017 due to the reduction in the corporate tax rate.  The provisional amount recorded for this re-measurement is a $57 million tax benefit.  We have also recorded a reasonable estimate of the transition tax on undistributed foreign earnings of $7 million.  These provisional estimates are subject to change as additional necessary information becomes available and the final analysis is prepared and analyzed in reasonable detail to complete the accounting. The additional information that needs to be gathered, analyzed and used to complete the accounting for the provisional $7 million transition tax includes the historical earnings and profit information of each foreign subsidiary.  In addition, the finalization of the 2017 federal income tax return will impact the underlying temporary differences existing at the end of 2017 used to determine the provisional tax benefit of $57 million.

We classify interest and penalties related to unrecognized tax positions as income taxes in our financial statements. We currently have the intent and ability to indefinitely reinvest the cash held by our non-Canadian foreign subsidiaries and, pending further analysis of the impact of the Tax Act, there are currently no plans for the repatriation of those amounts.  As such, no deferred income taxes have been provided for differences between the financial reporting and income tax basis inherent in these foreign subsidiaries.  



ITEM 7A.QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK 

Interest Rate Risk

As of December 31, 2017, all of our outstanding debt was at floating rates. These facilities prescribe the percentage point spreads from U.S. prime, LIBOR, Canadian prime and EURIBOR. Our facilities generally allow us to fix the interest rate, at our option, for a period of 30 to 180 days.

As of December 31, 2017, a 1% increase in the LIBOR rate would result in an increase in our interest expense of approximately $5 million per year if the amounts outstanding under our Term Loan and Global ABL Facility remained the same for an entire year.

Foreign Currency Exchange Rates

Our operations outside of the U.S. expose us to foreign currency exchange rate risk, as these transactions are primarily denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, our functional currency. Our exposure to changes in foreign exchange rates is managed primarily through the use of forward foreign exchange contracts. These contracts increase or decrease in value as foreign exchange rates change, protecting the value of the underlying transactions denominated in foreign currencies. All currency contracts are entered into for the sole purpose of hedging existing or anticipated currency exposure; we do not use foreign currency contracts for trading or speculative purposes. The terms of these contracts generally do not exceed one year. We record all changes in the fair market value of forward foreign exchange contracts in income. We recorded losses related to foreign currency contracts of $1 million for the year ended December 31, 2017, gains of $1 million in the year ended December 31, 2016 and losses of $1 million in the year ended December 31, 2015.

Steel Prices

Our business is sensitive to steel prices, which can impact our product pricing, with carbon steel line pipe prices generally having the highest degree of sensitivity. While we cannot predict steel prices, we manage this risk by managing our inventory levels, including maintaining sufficient quantity on hand to meet demand, while reducing the risk of overstocking.

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ITEM 8. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

 



 

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ITEM 9. CHANGES IN AND DISAGREEMENTS WITH ACCOUNTANTS ON ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE 

None.

ITEM 9A.CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES 

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

As required by the Exchange Act, we maintain disclosure controls and procedures designed to ensure that information we are required to disclose in reports that we file or submit under the Exchange Act, is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms.  Our disclosure controls and procedures include, without limitation, controls and procedures designed to ensure that information we are required to disclose in reports that we file or submit under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our principal executive and principal financial officers, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.  Our management, with the participation of our principal executive and financial officers, has evaluated our disclosure controls and procedures as of December 31, 2017 and has concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of December 31, 2017.  

Pursuant to section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer have provided certain certifications to the Securities and Exchange Commission. These certifications are included herein as Exhibits 31.1 and 31.2.

Management’s Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting 

The Company’s management report on internal control over financial reporting is set forth on page F-1 of this annual report and is incorporated herein by reference.

Attestation Report of our Registered Public Accounting Firm 

The Company’s registered public accounting firm’s attestation report on our internal control over financial reporting is set forth on page F-2 of this annual report and is incorporated herein by reference.

Changes in Internal Controls Over Financial Reporting



The Company has undertaken a multi-year enterprise resource planning (“ERP”) project to migrate certain systems to SAP software.  During the second quarter of 2016, we completed the SAP implementation in our Asia Pacific-based businesses. During the second quarter of 2017, we completed the implementation effort in our European and Middle Eastern businesses.  During the third quarter of 2017, we completed the implementation effort in our Nordic businesses. As a part of these implementations, various controls over financial reporting for the international segment changed during the year.



Other than described above, there were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting that occurred during 2017 that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.



ITEM 9B.OTHER INFORMATION 



None.





















 

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PART III

ITEM 10.DIRECTORS, EXECUTIVE OFFICERS AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE 

The information regarding our directors and nominees for director required by Item 401 of Regulation S-K will be presented under the heading “PROPOSAL I: ELECTION OF DIRECTORS” in our Proxy Statement prepared for the solicitation of proxies in connection with our annual Meeting of Stockholders to be held April 27, 2018 (“Proxy Statement”), which information is incorporated by reference herein.

Information regarding our executive officers required by Item 401(b) of Regulation S-K is presented at the end of Part I herein and captioned “Executive Officers of the Registrant” as permitted by General Instruction G(3) to Form 10-K and Instruction 3 to Item 401(b) of Regulation S-K.

Information required by Item 405 of Regulation S-K will be included under the heading “Section 16(a) Beneficial Ownership Reporting Compliance” in our Proxy Statement, which information is incorporated by reference herein.

Information required by paragraphs (c)(3), (d)(4) and (d)(5) of Item 407 of Regulation S-K will be included under the heading “QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE ANNUAL MEETING AND VOTING” and “CORPORATE GOVERNANCE” in our Proxy Statement, which information is incorporated by reference herein.

We have adopted a Code of Ethics for Principal Executive and Senior Financial Officers (“Code of Ethics for Senior Officers”) that applies to our Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer, and Controller, or persons performing similar functions. The Code of Ethics for Senior Officers, together with our Corporate Governance Guidelines, the charters for each of our board committees, and our Code of Ethics applicable to all employees are available on our Internet website at www.mrcglobal.com. We will provide, free of charge, a copy of our Code of Ethics or any of our other corporate documents listed above upon written request to our Corporate Secretary at 1301 McKinney Street, Suite 2300, Houston, Texas, 77010. We intend to disclose any amendments to or waivers of the Code of Ethics for Senior Officers on behalf of our Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer, and Controller, and persons performing similar functions on our Internet website at www.mrcglobal.com under the Investor Relations page, promptly following the date of any such amendment or waiver.

ITEM  11.EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION

The information required by Item 402 and paragraphs (e)(4) and (e)(5) of Item 407 of Regulations S-K regarding executive compensation will be presented under the headings “Compensation  Discussion and  Analysis,” “Employment and Other Agreements,” “Summary Compensation Table for 2017,” “Grants of Plan-Based Awards in Fiscal Year 2017,” “Outstanding Equity Awards at 2017 Fiscal Year-End,” “Option Exercises and Stock Vested During 2017,” “Potential Payments upon Termination or Change in Control,” “Non-Employee Director Compensation,” “Compensation Committee Report,” and “Compensation Committee Interlocks and Insider Participation” in our Proxy Statement, which information is incorporated by reference herein. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the information provided under the heading “Compensation Committee Report” in our Proxy Statement is furnished and shall not be deemed to be filed for purposes of Section 18 of the Exchange Act is not subject to the liabilities of that section and is not deemed incorporated by reference in any filing under the Securities Act.

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ITEM 12. SECURITY OWNERSHIP OF CERTAIN BENEFICIAL OWNERS AND MANAGEMENT AND RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS

The information regarding the security ownership of certain beneficial owners and management required by Item 403 of Regulation  S-K will be presented under the heading “Security Ownership of Officers and Directors” and “Stock Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners” in our Proxy Statement, which information is incorporated by reference herein.

The following table summarizes information, as of December 31, 2017, relating to our equity compensation plans pursuant to which grants of options, restricted stock, or certain other rights to acquire our shares may be granted from time to time.



ITEM 13.CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATED TRANSACTIONS, AND DIRECTOR INDEPENDENCE 

The information regarding certain relationships and related transactions required by Item 404 and Item 407(a) of Regulation S-K will be presented under the headings “Certain Relationships and Related Transactions”, “Related Party Transaction Policy”, “Corporate Governance,” “Board and  Committees,” “Board of Directors,” “Director Independence” and “Committees of the Board” in our Proxy Statement, which information is incorporated by reference herein.

ITEM 14.PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTANT FEES AND SERVICES 

The information regarding our principal accounting fees and services required by Item 9(e) of Schedule 14A will be presented under the headings “Principal Accounting Fees and Services” and “Policy on Audit Committee Pre-Approval of Audit and Non-Audit Services of Independent Auditors” in our Proxy Statement, which information is incorporated by reference herein.

 

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PART IV

ITEM  15.EXHIBITS AND FINANCIAL STATEMENT SCHEDULES 

(a)Documents Filed as Part of this Annual Report:

1.Financial Statements.  

See “Item 8—Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.”

2.Financial Statement Schedules.  

All schedules are omitted because they are not applicable, not required or the information is included in the financial statements or the notes thereto.

3.List of Exhibits.  

 





†Management contract or compensatory plan or arrangement required to be posted as an exhibit to this report.

*Filed herewith.

**Furnished herewith.

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SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized.

 



Date: February 16, 2018 

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, this report has been signed below by the following persons on behalf of the registrant and in the capacity and on the dates indicated.