After Three Years of Losses, Tutor Perini’s 2025 Is Looking Up

After enduring three years of net annual losses, Tutor Perini reported a profitable first quarter of 2025—based on successful project work, not resolved disputes—providing hope of the contractor maintaining momentum for the rest of the year.Change orders and claims, including some adverse decisions, have been a focus from 2022 to 2024, when reported net losses attributable to the company were $210 million, $171 million and $163.7 million, respectively.This year is off to a good start. Tutor Perini (NYSE:TPC) recorded net income of $42.7 million on revenue of $1.2 billion in the first quarter of 2025, compared to $27.5 million on $1.04 billion for the same quarter last year.Half the company’s operations are in civil and heavy construction, about a third in building construction and the rest are carried out by four separate specialty contractors.Gary G. Smalley, who recently assumed the CEO role, told investment analysts on a conference call last month that the company was increasing its guidance for investors about expected earnings per share for the year. Tutor Perini has work on many large projects, including the $1.13-billion Newark Airport Airtrain and the Los Angeles Purple Line Sections 2 and 3.The company’s good first quarter was the result of sound fundamentals, Smalley said. “Overall, our revenue and earnings were driven by increased project execution activities on certain newer, higher-margin projects that all have substantial scope of work remaining.” Ronald Tutor, who recently stepped down as Tutor-Perini CEO, has told investors over the past year or so that the company was determined to collect payments he believed it was owed on disputed projects. He remains executive chairman.Disputed Claims Still ImportantResolution of claims and disputed project closeouts remains a concern.Smalley noted that the Tutor Perini guidance to investors for 2025 was contingent on many factors including “settlements or adverse legal decisions associated with the resolution of disputes” related to prior or ongoing projects.The first quarter, however, is “really clean from any significant impact of the dispute resolution activity that we had underway,” he said.  “We actually made very good progress on some of our larger claims. We settled up some things.”Smalley added: “We still expect to make progress this year resolving various other disputes and collecting significant associated cash.”  But he continued, “those collections are expected later in the year.”To that end, since April the company has had a help-wanted sign out for a senior level job with the title of director of change orders and claims management, a position where the salary range is $250,000 to $300,000 per year. The newly hired director will report to the company chief financial officer and be based in the Los Angeles corporate headquarters.No matter who lands the job, its importance to the company is clear.