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Dive Brief:
- Tutor Perini stood up $2 billion in new awards and contract adjustments in the third quarter and its existing jobs remain on track despite President Donald Trump’s threats to pull funding for major infrastructure builds, the company said on an earnings call Wednesday.
- The company’s backlog increased to $21.6 billion, a 54% increase over the same period in 2024 and a company record. Chief executive and chairman Gary Smalley said current and future work was not threatened by the macroeconomic or political environment.
- “We do not yet anticipate that the tariffs will have a significant impact on our business,” Smalley said. “We also do not currently anticipate any risk that any of our major projects and backlogs will be canceled, delayed, delayed or materially affected by the administration’s targeted funding cuts or the recent federal government shutdown.”
Diving knowledge:
Smalley said he included his work in the first phase of the California High Speed Rail work and his projects in New York. In October, the contractor confirmed that it did work in the Manhattan tunnel as part of Amtrak’s $16 billion Gateway program it was still active and moving forward, despite President Donald Trump’s claims that the project was over.
Smalley reiterated this state of affairs on the Nov. 5 call.
Gary Smalley
Courtesy of Tutor Perini
“We have had discussions with our customers and they have confirmed that our projects are funded and authorized and are not expected to be adversely affected,” Smalley said. “For us, it’s business as usual at this point in all of our big projects.”
Third-quarter revenue was $1.42 billion, up 31% from $1.08 billion in the same period in 2024. It made a profit of $3.63 billion, up from a loss of $100.86 million in the third quarter last year.
Combined with its growing portfolio, these results led the company to raise its guidance for the third time in as many quarters. While he declined to specify GAAP numbers because of the rising stock price that made stock-based compensation a moving target, he raised his 2025 earnings per share target to a range of $4.00 to $4.20 on an adjusted basis. That beat their previous target of $3.65 to $3.95.
With its backlog now at a record high, Smalley said there was still room for more. The company sees “more than $25 billion in upcoming bidding opportunities over the next 12 to 18 months.”
The largest of these include the $12 billion Sepulveda Transit Corridor in Los Angeles; the $5 billion Penn Station transformation project in New York City; the $3.8 billion Southeast Gateway line, also in Los Angeles; and a $2 billion replacement hospital in California.
Smalley said Tutor Perini’s improvement in the final quarters has turned a corner losses arising from the settlement of disputes in legacy projects in previous years, it was due to a macroeconomic environment increasing infrastructure spending, a trend that is expected to continue.
“We believe these tailwinds will persist because of the large amount of federal, state and local funding that exists today,” Smalley said, “and because our country has for decades and until recent years neglected to properly fund and prioritize the kinds of substantial infrastructure investments that are being made today.”
At the same time, he tried to temper Wall Street’s expectations (the company’s shares are up more than 160% year to date) for an ever-increasing portfolio number. Asked by analysts if the fourth-quarter backlog would be higher, Smalley projected more level results.
“It’s probably a little flatter in the fourth quarter,” he said. “Lately, every quarter seems to be, you know, going up to the new record, the new record, the new record. We’re not going to see that going forward in the near term. We may have new records, but it’s not going to be consistent quarter after quarter.”
