Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Tutor Perini Acquires Frontier-Kemper and Plans to Buy Lunda

By Richard Korman and Debra K. Rubin

Tutor Perini Corp. acquired Frontier-Kemper and plans to acquire Lunda Corp., adding significantly to its market share in heavy and civil construction, especially in the Midwest.

Tutor Perini says in a statement that it will pay $153.5 million for Lunda--$131.8 million in cash and $21.7 million in debt. In addition, Tutor Perini says there is a structured earnout based on profitability targets for three years.

The transaction is scheduled to close July 1, 2011.

Founded in 1938, Lunda Construction Co. is based in Black River Falls, Wisc. It has extensive experience in bridges and marine and railroad-related construction. The company’s plainly presented website prominently displays the words “Bridges—Pile Driving—Dams.”

Lunda reported 2010 revenue of $360 million and ranked 143d on ENR’s Top 400 Contractors.

Until now, Lunda had remained under the control of the Lunda family, with Larry Lunda serving as chief executive.

Avram Fisher, an analyst for BMO Capital Markets, New York City, says the Lunda deal gives Tutor Perini northern Midwest geographic exposure, primarily in highways. “Lunda is highway, dam and rail contractor with experience in 30-states but significant exposure to states around Wisconsin,” he says.
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Fisher characterized Lunda as a disciplined bidder. “We calculate that over the last 12-months the company has been the low-bid on roughly $130 million in work to WIDOT and $138M in low bids to MNDOT.

Tutor Perini acquired 100% of Frontier-Kemper's stock from Dellmann Haniel International Mining and Tunneling GmbH. for about $61 million in cash and assumed about $52 million of debt. Tutor Perini paid $35 million at closing.

Based in Evansville, Ind., Frontier-Kemper is known for its tunneling projects. The company reported $148.4 million in 2010 revenue and ranked 343d on ENR’s Top 400 contractors.

Frontier-Kemper will continue to operate under its current name and will be managed by its current senior management team, with W.D. Rogstad remaining as president and chief executive.

"We are eager to leverage Tutor Perini's national presence and civil expertise to expand our reach and capture new opportunities," Rogstad said in a statement.

4 comments:

  1. FORMER PRESIDENT OF PERINI CORP. CIVIL DIVISION CONVICTED IN $19 MILLION DISADVANTAGED BUSINESS ENTITIES FRAUD

    March 10, 2011

    Following a four-week trial, a federal jury in Brooklyn yesterday found Zohrab B. Marashlian, the former president of Perini Corp.’s Civil Division, an international construction services corporation, guilty of fraud and conspiracy to launder money. The charges arose out of Marashlian’s false representations to New York government agencies that Disadvantaged Business Entities (DBEs) were performing work in connection with major public works contracts, when, in reality, Marashlian had non-disadvantaged businesses favored by Perini Corp. do the work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. When the U.S. government embraces gangsters


    07 April 2011

    The construction industry has a bad reputation of fraud, cost overruns, and safety violations that’s well-earned. So the federal government and New York state came up with a crimebusting taskforce – including the U.S. Departments of Justice, Labor and Transportation, the IRS, the New York State Inspector General, and the New York City of Department of Transportation – aimed at construction activity.

    They knew they were going after the five Mafia families, but they also ended up with a big catch – the gigantic firm known as Tutor Perini.

    Last month, according to the New York U.S. Attorney’s Office, "Following a four-week trial, a federal jury in Brooklyn found Zohrab B. Marashlian, the former president of Perini Corp.’s Civil Division, an international construction services corporation, guilty of fraud and conspiracy to launder money. The charges arose out of Marashlian’s false representation to New York government agencies that Disadvantaged Business Entities (DBEs) were performing work in connection with major public works contracts, when, in reality, Marashlian had non-disadvantaged businesses favored by Perini Corp. do the work."

    Tutor Perini paid Marashlian $14 million in salary while all this was going on.

    From the Seattle News: "In February, Tutor-Saliba and Perini agreed to pay $19 million to settle racketeering and fraud allegations in a San Francisco airport project. In 2004, Perini agreed to pay the federal government $998,500 to settle fraud claims in the construction of an embassy building in Venezuela. The companies are embroiled in an 11-year legal battle over $16 million in extra costs on a Los Angeles subway job. Perini sued for more than $170 million in cost overruns on three New York City projects during the 1990s before settling for about $22 million."

    Growing anyway

    Any Black-owned firm doing any of the above would be permanently banned from doing anymore federal contracting. But Perini has actually grown exponentially in the government contracting field.

    How can this be? Well, the principal owner of Tutor Perini is Richard Blum, the husband of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee – which oversees the U.S. Department of Defense.

    Since joining the U.S. Senate, Feinstein and her husband have enjoyed billions of dollars in defense contracts. She voted for the Afghanistan war, and their company is rolling in directly related contracts. She voted for the Iraq war, and their company has been rolling in Iraqi contracts ever since.

    American soldiers die and the senator and her husband prosper handsomely and with reckless abandon. It got so ridiculous that when she became the chair of the Armed Services Committee, even her counterparts said, "That’s enough!" She stepped down from her chair seat, but is still on the committee – and the dollars continue to roll in.

    Obama participates

    Feinstein voted for the stimulus bill and Perini was showered with more federally funded contracts. President Obama even participated in this one. He kicked off the highway contracts with a press conference at a highway construction site in Virginia, showing the world what the stimulus money was doing. The contractor he put on display was Cherry Hill Construction. Who owns Cherry Hill Construction? Tutor Perini!

    ReplyDelete
  3. When the San Francisco Human Rights Commission certifies a DBE/MBE business, via & through a box of business cards picked up at Staples; and when the man/woman/firm has no verifiable address, no corporate business address or resume, zero construction or engineering experience, zero credit or bonding capacity and the Mayor & Airport Commission all but order you to hire the DBE/MBE firm & assign or delegate a portion of the contract to said firm - to satisfy the progressives & liberals political agenda's and hiring quota's for DBE/MBE's....then who is shaking down whom?

    Think about it.

    All that went on here was the pol's were playing the public for fools and were covering their ass by utilizing the press and feeding them phony press releases.

    They created stories where there were none to be told; and the reality is - they executed a shakedown of an insurer/re-insurer for a $19M dollar check to which they were not entitled to receive.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey, but if the Government does it, whether or not Constitutional, well golly gee, it's just swell.

    Take the creation of the Federal Reserve (centennial) as the classic case in point. The producers have been shaken down for a century to support those who refuse to work.

    It takes balls, brains, sweat, equity, capital, bonding, insurance & talent to build a sussessful business and all these programs do is say screw that if you can't a firm who did it of their own volition, you will comply with our mandate nevertheless and put a firm on the payroll for the so called public good & cut them a check for being a minority so the liberals and progressives in the think tanks can have that feel good photo-op around what a success their wisdom has brought forth.

    Here's a newsflash: When the job has to get done on a tight schedule, and every job today is tight, these fools are only in the way and they slow the real contractors down. Their clueless fools who couldn't run a lemonade stand or balance a checkbook if their life depended on it. But, on the first of the month, they sure as heel know where the mailbox is so they can go cash the governments monthly kiss which comes with free gas, electric, cable, land line, Obama Phone EBT Card, Health Insurance, Abortion services, Eye Glasses, Dental Care, Hearing Aids, Medical Marijuana, anti-Anxiety Med's, Pain Killers that they crush, smoke and get high on and of course Food for not working so they can eat.

    All this costs on avergae about $75k per family, not counting the lost tax revenue on the money the Illegal Alien live-in Baby Daddy earns working non-union, cash, 1099 and wherein he or she sendshalf back to the old country, so the total figure is more like $100k a year not counting all the babies they produce or their long term care over 18-years.

    It's cheaper to put them all in jail/prison by about half.

    Any questions?

    ReplyDelete

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