NOTE 2. CHANGES IN BUSINESS

Asset Acquisitions

On October 26, 2017, the Company completed the purchase of substantially all of the assets of MMFX Technologies Corporation ("MMFX"). MMFX markets, sells, and licenses the production of proprietary specialty steel products. The operating results of MMFX are included in the Americas Mills reporting segment. The acquisition of MMFX was not material to the Company's financial position or results of operations.

Discontinued Operations

During fiscal 2017, the Company announced a plan to exit its International Marketing and Distribution segment, including its trading operations in the United States ("U.S."), Asia, and Australia. As an initial step in this plan, on August 31, 2017, the Company completed the sale of CMC Cometals. The results related to CMC Cometals activities are included in discontinued operations in the consolidated statements of earnings for all periods presented. The remainder of the International Marketing and Distribution segment is expected to be classified in discontinued operations either upon meeting the criteria to be classified as held for sale or upon the wind-down of each operation.

The major classes of line items constituting earnings before income taxes for CMC Cometals, which are included in earnings (loss) from discontinued operations before income taxes in the unaudited condensed consolidated statements of earnings for all periods presented, are presented in the table below.



	Three Months Ended November 30,
(in thousands)	2017			2016
Net sales	$	124		$	80,972
Costs and expenses:
Cost of goods sold	29			72,794
Selling, general and administrative expenses	1,281			5,382
Interest expense	—			6
Earnings (loss) before income taxes	(1,186		)	2,790
Income taxes (benefit)	(172		)	553
Earnings (loss) from discontinued operations	$	(1,014	)	$	2,237

There were no material operating or investing non-cash items for CMC Cometals for the three months ended November 30, 2017 and 2016.

Other than CMC Cometals, there were no other material components that were classified as discontinued operations for the three months ended November 30, 2017 and 2016.

Financial information for discontinued operations was as follows:



	Three Months Ended November 30,
(in thousands)	2017			2016
Net sales	$	124		$	80,948
Earnings (loss) before income taxes	$	(1,898	)	$	1,873