How Granite Construction performed in the first quarter of 2018

Roberts

Construction materials revenues increased 32.5 percent in the 2018 first quarter at Granite Construction, although the company reported a gross loss of $2.5 million in this particular segment of its business.

“Demand continues to point to growth fueled by private-market opportunities now combining with improving public funding trends across geographies and end markets,” says James Roberts, president and CEO of Granite Construction. “These early-stage dynamics point to broad opportunities for the next three years or more.”

Overall, Granite was pleased with its performance over the first three months of 2018, which merited record first-quarter revenue for the company.

“Our construction segment led the way, with the construction materials segment producing strong top-line revenue growth in our seasonally weakest quarter,” Roberts says. “The large project construction segment again produced solid revenue growth and improved profitability, driven primarily by the contribution of newer projects in our portfolio.

“While work on under-performing, mature projects had less impact in the first quarter, it remained a drag on overall profitability, and it is expected to negatively impact margins through much of 2018,” he adds.

The near- and long-term outlook for demand and funding of infrastructure investment continues to improve, Roberts says.

“Backlog trends remain steady, even with more than 20 percent revenue growth in the first quarter,” he says.