Jacobs Engineering earnings rise 31 percent
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Construction services company Jacobs Engineering Group Inc (JEC.N) said a record-high order backlog drove quarterly earnings up 31 percent, beating analysts' estimates.
Third-quarter net earnings rose to $108.7 million, or 87 cents per share, from $74.8 million, or 61 cents, in the year-ago period, beating analysts' estimates by 5 cents per share.
Revenue rose to of $2.9 billion from $2.1 billion.
Jacobs said late on Monday its backlog reached $18.3 billion by June 30, including a technical professional services component of $8.0 billion. This is up from $11.0 billion and $5.9 billion, respectively, a year earlier.
About $1.0 billion of the backlog rise was related to gains in services for an upstream oil and gas project in North America.
"Considering the strong quarter we just completed and the growth in backlog, we are increasing our earnings-per-share guidance for fiscal 2008 to a range of $3.15 to $3.40, inclusive of the one-time gain recognized in the first quarter," said CFO John Prosser.
The company had previously forecast earnings of $3.00 to $3.30 per share for the year. Analysts are looking for full-year earnings of $3.16, according to Reuters Estimates.
(Reporting by Christopher Kaufman, editing by Mark Porter)
