Engineering firms with operations in OC posted 13% growth to $1.2 billion in local annual billings—and only about a third of that expansion came from the perennial big three.
• No. 1, Irving, Texas-based Fluor Corp., with local offices in Aliso Viejo, is estimated to do a little more than $300 million annually with its local work; the company reported year-over-year decline of almost 2%.
• No. 2, L.A.-based AECOM, with its OC based in Orange, was down about 15% to $110 million.
• No. 3, Dallas-based Jacobs, with a seat in the county in Irvine, was up 123% to $104 million.
With the jump, Jacobs—full name, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYSE: JEC)—joined the $100 Million Club for OC billings, and a gang of four engineering firms—three of them with local headquarters—that this year offered up annual growth exceeding 100%.
Public Records
One of the others was also a public company, local operator Willdan Group Inc. (Nasdaq: WLDN) in Anaheim, an energy and engineering consultancy that grew 194% to $24 million. It rocketed the firm up 14 slots to No. 15.
The other two triple-digit growers are:
• No. 10, SPEC Services Inc., in Fountain Valley, up 106% to nearly $38 million.
• No. 22, Salas O’Brien, in Santa Ana, up 311%—the biggest increase on the list this year—to $11 million.
A double portion of firms—eight across the list—grew by double digits and a similar number of others grew in the single-digit range.
Thirty firms are ranked, each with at least $5 million in annual local billings, for the 12 months ended in June.
Going Nuclear
The top three firms accounted for $516 million of the list’s $1.2 billion total, or about 43%. Firmwide, the three have combined billings topping $51 billion.
Jacobs’ year firmwide saw multiple acquisitions, several in the nine figures, culminating in recent months with two buys under what the firm calls its “aerospace, technology and nuclear” strategy. It paid:
• $815 million in June for Hanover, Md.-based KeyW Holding Corp., which is involved in intelligence, national security, and cyber- and counter-terrorism.
• In August, it said it will buy Aberdeen, Scotland-based John Wood Group PLC’s nuclear division for $300 million.
Also this year, it closed the $3.3 billion sale of its energy, chemicals and resources segment and nabbed a consulting deal on parts of what’s planned as the largest shipyard in the Arabian Gulf, the King Salman International Complex.
Jacobs beat analyst estimates in its second and third quarters this year.
It traded recently at a $12.4 billion market cap.
Will Do
Willdan Group shares are up about 75% to a $404 million market cap over the last 18 months, a period that includes the time frame of listed firms’ annual billings. It’s Anaheim’s largest public company.
Acquisitions in that period include:
• Carlsbad-based Onsite Energy Corp. on undisclosed terms, expected to add about $20 million in annual revenue.
• Environmental impact consultant the Weidt Group from Albany, N.Y.-based EYP on undisclosed terms, kicking in another $14 million and expanding Willdan’s work in the upper Midwest.
• The $120 million acquisition of Lime Energy Co. in Newark, N.J., expected to add about $145 million.
New contracts in the year include a $2.7 million energy efficiency agreement with Southern California Gas Co.; a study to assess a possible renewable power microgrid for Culver City; and a $7.5 million heating and power upgrade to a plant owned by Bronx, N.Y.-based Amalgamated Housing Cooperative.
Salas Days
Salas O’Brien Chief Executive Darin Anderson said via email that the company’s massive billings increase comes in the seventh straight year of it being named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies and a result of both organic and acquisitive growth.
It bought Irvine-based OMB Electrical Engineers and Chicago-based WMA Consulting Engineers this year, part of a dozen or so deals it’s executed since Anderson bought it with partners Chuck O’Neal and Paul Silva in 2006. In 2016, the trio implemented an ESOP and the firm is 100% employee-owned.
The Business Journal previously reported its buys this year added clients in healthcare, hospitality, theme parks, manufacturing, higher education and high-rise project, as well as new offices.
Anderson said clients have included University of California-Irvine, the counties of Orange, L.A., Riverside, and San Bernardino; and Boeing, among others.
The construction engineering firm is expected to hit $145 million in firmwide revenue from about two dozen offices this year; it had $108 million in the 12 months ended in June.
It had about $5 million when the three partners came aboard a dozen years ago.
Anderson won an Excellence in Entrepreneurship award from the Business Journal in March.
