Southern California’s growth is driving Keith Cos.
The Irvine-based engineering company has been busy working on roads, water systems and homes in Orange County and elsewhere in the Southland. Keith does land planning, mapping, surveying, civil and industrial engineering, site acquisition, permit processing and project management.
For the 12 months ended June 30, Keith had $93 million in sales, 48% more than three years earlier. Profits grew 30% to $7.7 million during the same period.
The company ranks No. 36 on the Business Journal’s list of fastest-growing companies. Last year, Keith ranked No. 21 and slipped amid faster growth by some companies and newcomers that placed higher on the list.
Keith’s growth can vary depending on what projects it’s working on at a given time. In the second quarter, the company saw sales rise 8% to $24.5 million.
For the year, Keith said it expects sales of about $95 million, versus $91 million for 2003.
Investors, heartened by a steady stream of contracts wins, like the company. Keith’s shares have surged in recent weeks and were up nearly 20% for the year as of last week. The company counted a recent market value of $125 million.
Like Aliso Viejo-based Fluor Corp., No. 41 on the list, Keith has looked to new work to offset a decline in the natural gas power plant building business in recent years.
The work isn’t entirely dead: This summer Keith was named as a subcontractor for a liquefied natural gas terminal project in Sonora, Mexico.
Keith also earlier this year announced that it had begun work in support of development of a wind power project near Sweetwater, Texas.
Housing has been a big source of business. Early this year, Keith won a $6.3 million deal to provide engineering, mapping and some construction work on a 1,416-home development in Riverside County.
Company officials expect continued growth with population increases in California along with other states such as Texas, Nevada and Arizona.
In other work, Keith maps fiber-optic communication lines, enhances manufacturing processes and designs software for robotics.
The company counts more than 1,000 clients in all. The goal is portion the business equally across four sectors,public works, telecommunications, infrastructure and industrial.
In the past couple of years, the company has won projects that include surveying work for a runway at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport and water project work in the Inland Empire and the Coachella Valley.
Since starting operations in 1983, Keith Cos. has had offices or projects in several states as well as projects and feasibility studies in Mexico, Taiwan, Russia and Eastern Europe.
41. Fluor Corp.
Aliso Viejo engineering services provider Fluor Corp. can count on Iraq and other international markets to bolster sales.
Fluor, which does engineering and construction work on large projects globally, debuted at No. 41 on this year’s Business Journal list of fastest-growing Orange County-based public companies.
Fluor’s sales of $8.8 billion for the 12 months ended June 30 are 41% higher than for the same period three years ago. Net profit, meanwhile, has quadrupled to $187 million.
The company is one of the world’s biggest engineering companies. It counts more than 1,300 employees in Orange County alone. Fluor employs more than 30,000 workers companywide.
Fluor’s companywide backlog on June 30 was $12.9 billion, up from $10.5 billion a year earlier. Backlog is a telling number for engineering companies, such as Fluor, as it reveals what’s in the company’s revenue pipeline.
Fluor has won some $2.2 billion worth of work in Iraq on its own and with the United Kingdom’s AMEC PLC. Local projects include the $200 million Ren & #233;e and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and Samueli Theater at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. The 2,000-seat symphony hall and 500-seat theater are expected to open in 2006, with Fluor being construction manager on the project.
The company consistently books big international contracts. It recently won a $176 million oil refinery deal in South Africa, a $57 million gas terminal pact in Norway and a $129 million floating oil production plant off the Australian coast, to name a few.
The gains mark a turnaround from the past couple of years, when Fluor suffered from a falloff in power plant building work and some hitches in key markets around the world. The company cut 32% of its OC workforce in the past year and is dissolving its power-plant venture with Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy.
“As we build new awards and backlog, that portends a very strong 2005, 2006 and beyond,” Kenneth Lockwood, Fluor’s vice president of corporate finance, said in a past interview.
Fluor shares are up about 14% to 43 in the past year.
One big wild card for the company: Iraq. Company officials soon expect to hear more details about the Bush administration’s plan to shift $3.5 billion from water, electricity and other reconstruction projects in Iraq to improve security, boost oil output and prepare for Iraq’s elections, which are set for January.
That plan could mean a move in funds away from projects Fluor currently has in Iraq. Fluor is under way with electricity and other public works projects, as well as building military barracks near Baghdad.
But there also are opportunities for Fluor to grow its Iraq work.
The Army is considering a rebid of some of Houston-based Halliburton Co.’s military logistics work in Iraq, with Fluor likely to go after some of those contracts.
Halliburton’s Kellogg Brown & Root unit has been handling an estimated $13 billion of Iraq-related work, which was awarded to the company as part of a 2001 broad-based military service contract.
