Los Angeles-based AECOM, which earlier this year sold off its government contracting business for nuclear cleanup, might be close to another nuclear-related spinoff, a source said Wednesday.
The multinational engineering, design and construction company could divest its energy business, possibly within days, the source said, citing industry rumors and AECOM’s publicly-stated intent to sell certain assets.
In public filings during the past nine months, AECOM acknowledged interest in selling electric power and other “at risk construction” businesses formerly reported under its Construction Services segment.
“As per our policy, we do not comment on market rumors or speculation,” AECOM spokesman Jason Marshall said Wednesday in an email.
AECOM has built or designed “virtually every type of power plant” and has expertise in areas such as fossil fuel, nuclear and hydroelectric power and “decommissioning and closure of facilities no longer in use,” according to the website for the energy business.
AECOM sold off its federal contracting Management Services unit in January to a pair of New York-based investment firms for $2.4 billion. The new owners renamed that business Amentum, and it remains a major contractor for the Department of Energy nuclear weapons complex and the Department of Defense.
AECOM, meanwhile, remains the decommissioning contractor for the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California — although its chief financial officer said in a May conference call that the company might sell its stake in that operation as well. AECOM and Utah-based EnergySolutions won a $4.4-billion decommission contract for the retired nuclear plant in December 2016.
AECOM has “gotten to a point where there is enough interest and perhaps enough certainty in the market where some deals can get done, and we are out in the marketplace with those businesses and in discussions with multiple parties,” Troy Rudd, then-chief financial officer, said during the company’s most recent quarterly earnings call, according to a transcript.
In June, AECOM named Rudd its new chief executive officer, succeeding Michael Burke who had previously announced his retirement.
