It has been a tough first quarter for some publicly owned construction firms as healthy competition and sluggish project momentum took a toll on early 2013 results, particularly earnings. While some companies had good news to report last month and others predicted a late-year upswing, many analysts were skeptical about the rest of 2013.
Andrew Wittmann, E&C sector analyst for Robert W. Baird, found Q1 reports of 15 tracked public firms "uninspiring," with "little confidence in forward estimates." Even with some firms' backlogs up, "awards [are] falling light and larger prospects seemingly sliding to the right," he said. Offsetting some gains in infrastructure, "power showed incremental erosion, and federal markets bore the first round of sequestration budget cuts," said Wittmann. "Labor underutilization also impacted [firms'] margins."