Jacobs Engineering Group reported $2 million in net earnings for its latest financial quarter, a steep year-over-year dive from $61 million linked to its recent acquisition of CH2M.
Earnings for Jacobs’ fiscal 2018 first quarter ended Dec. 31, 2017, took a hit from the $3.27 billion CH2M acquisition and a one-time tax charge, Jacobs said in a press release. Jacobs reported a number of charges for the quarter, including a $51 million after-tax charge associated with completing the CH2M deal.
Because the CH2M merger closed on Dec. 15, the earnings report includes a two-week “stub period” of CH2M ownership, from Dec. 16 through Dec. 31, Jacobs said during a conference call with financial analysts. Management didn’t go into detail on this stub period’s impact on Jacobs’ quarterly numbers.
Jacobs reported $2.8 billion in revenue for the quarter, $200 million more than the $2.6 billion recorded during the same three-month period a year ago. Net earnings landed at $97 million, or $0.77 per share, up 13 percent year over year from $83 million, or $0.68.
“The addition of CH2M’s nuclear and environmental business catapults us into a leadership position” in those business sectors, said Jacobs Chairman and CEO Steven Demetriou during the conference call.
CH2M’s contracts with the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management have been placed under Jacobs’ Aerospace and Technology segment. Recently, DOE shifted management of the troubled Plutonium Finishing Plant demolition at the Hanford Site in Washington state to Jacobs, which now is now owner of cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. CH2M also plays key roles in environmental cleanup programs at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee and the West Valley Demonstration Project near Buffalo, N.Y.
Demetriou said few CH2M staff have left in the wake of the merger. “We remain as bullish as we were when we announced the deal,” he said.
