Insituform Sees Flood of New Work from Stimulus

After landing $86 million worth of stimulus work last year, Insituform Technologies Inc. is banking on a continued stream of business this year, according to the St. Louis Business Journal.

By the end of 2010, the Chesterfield-based pipeline repair company expects to tap into another $86 million of stimulus-backed projects, according to Joe Burgess, president and chief executive.

“Stimulus work backstopped a very down economy,” Burgess said. “The market was more robust than it would have been because of the stimulus.”

Burgess said many of the projects awarded last year would not impact its income statements until this year, when the work actually begins. “Stimulus work will really have a three-year impact (on Insituform),” he said.

The article also notes:

Burgess said the U.S. sewer rehabilitation market is about $1 billion annually and is expected it to grow into a $2 billion market.

Publicly-traded Layne Christensen, which does pipeline rehabilitation business as Reynolds Inc., is Insituform’s largest competitor. Layne Christensen’s water infrastructure division, which includes Reynolds, reported revenue of $767 million in 2009. Another competitor, albeit much smaller, is O’Fallon, Mo.-based SAK Construction, which was formed four years ago by three former Insituform executives. SAK had annual sales of about $35 million last year.

The backlog for Insituform’s North American Sewer Rehabilitation (NAR) segment as of Dec. 31 was $180.9 million, up 20 percent from the same time in 2008.

To read the entire article from the St. Louis Business Journal, click onto https://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2010/03/22/story2.html?b=1269230400%5E3050361