News Archive
KBR goes industrial with BE&K purchase
Released on 14/05/2008
Houston’s KBR, the fourth-largest general contractor in the US, has increased its presence in the industrial construction sector by buying the privately-owned BE&K for $550 million (£282 million).
Chip Schneider, KBR’s vice president and interim chief financial officer, told analysts this week that the deal fitted the company’s strategy of targeted acquisitions and returned KBR to prominence in industrial construction.
“After seeing our presence wane,” Schneider says, “clients asked, ‘Are you serious about construction’?”
BE&K, which trade journal Engineering News-Record ranked the 45th largest US general contractor in 2007, is prominent in both design and contracting in pulp and paper, chemicals, industrial process, aerospace and food processing.
The company, which took in revenues of $2 billion last year and employs about 800 people in Birmingham, Alabama, will continue to operate as before.
KBR also believes the buyout will give BE&K a chance to win construction projects in the oil and gas industry, a speciality of KBR, which was spun off last year from Houston-based Halliburton Corp., the largest oilfield services firm.
