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Metalurgica Gerdau S.A.
Gerdau makes steel — long and flat products — for construction, industry, farming, and cars, mostly in Brazil and the Americas.
Gerdau is one of the biggest steelmakers in the Americas. It melts scrap and iron into steel, then rolls that steel into the shapes people actually build with: long bars and beams for construction and industry, and flat sheets for things like cars and appliances. Its customers are the companies that put up buildings, make machinery, build farm equipment, and assemble vehicles.
Most of its steel comes from recycling scrap, which it melts in electric furnaces. That is cheaper and cleaner than starting from iron ore, and it means Gerdau's mills can be smaller and spread closer to customers. It runs mills across Brazil, the United States, and other parts of Latin America, and it is especially strong in long steel — the rebar and beams that hold up buildings and bridges. In the US it owns the Gerdau Long Steel North America business, which makes it a significant supplier to American construction. Steel is a brutal business. Prices swing with construction activity and global trade, and cheap imports — especially from China — can crush margins. Gerdau's answer is scale, scrap recycling, and being close to its customers so shipping costs stay low. The company is controlled by the Gerdau family through a holding structure, which shapes how it is run: patient, long-term, and careful with debt.
It pays out a meaningful chunk of its profits as dividends, and it has spent money modernizing mills and expanding its specialty steel operations rather than chasing volume. The simple version: Gerdau turns old metal into the skeleton of new buildings, and its fortunes rise and fall with how much the world is building.
Saved answer · last researched 12 Nov 2026