Jacobs (J) Wins GSA's ASTRO Contract Awards, Fortifies CMS
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. J has secured as many as seven awards in the ASTRO program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).
The multiple-award, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract has no specific ceiling value. That said, it is expected to have a multi-billion-dollar budget over its potential 10-year ordering period.
The ASTRO program — managed by the General Services Administration or GSA’s Federal Systems Integration and Management Center — currently emphasizes on providing the DoD with technology, products, solutions, and capabilities across all domains as the Department operationalizes convergence.
In this regard, Lieutenant General (retired) Bruce Crawford, Jacobs’ Critical Mission Solutions or CMS senior vice president of Strategic Development and Growth & Sales said, “These awards on GSA's highly anticipated ASTRO contract enable Jacobs to deliver full lifecycle digital solutions and cutting-edge technologies to ensure interoperability, resilience and assurance for the DoD and the joint forces.”
With these GSA ASTRO awards, Jacobs will continue to innovate and scale digital solutions to support the DoD's mission. The company secured a major position on the Defense Intelligence Agency's Solutions for the Information Technology Enterprise III (SITE III) IDIQ contract in March 2021. This further solidified Jacobs’ leadership in this space.
Focus on Government Projects Bodes Well
The U.S. government is the world’s largest buyer of technical services, and in fiscal 2020, approximately 79% of CMS’ revenues were earned from serving the DoD, intelligence community as well as federal civilian governmental entities.
CMS backlog grew 5.5% year over year to $9.57 billion at fiscal third quarter-end, which provided it with strong visibility into the base business. The company’s overall 18-month qualified new business pipeline of more than $30 billion remains robust. This segment is benefiting from well-funded government programs and cyber, DoD, mission-IT, space, nuclear as well as 5G-related projects.
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Although this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company’s shares have underperformed the Zacks Engineering - R and D Services industry year to date, earnings estimates for fiscal 2021 have moved 1.1% upward in the past 60 days. The estimated figure indicates a year-over-year improvement of 13.1%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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Some better-ranked stocks in the same industry include Quanta Services, Inc. PWR, Altair Engineering Inc. ALTR, and KBR, Inc. KBR. While Quanta Services sports a Zacks Rank #1, the other two stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Quanta Services, Altair, and KBR’s earnings for 2021 are expected to rise 19.9%, 64.5%, and 24.9%, respectively.
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