Fluor Reports 1st-Quarter Profit Down by 11.6%

IRVINE — Fluor Corp. reported a fiscal 1999 first-quarter profit of $54.8 million, or 66 cents per share, down 11.6% from $62 million, or 74 cents per share, a year earlier.

The international engineering, construction services and coal mining company said its continuing reorganization and a weak Asian economy were responsible for the drop in earnings and for flat revenue of $3.4 billion, unchanged from a year earlier.

Operating profit for the company’s Fluor Daniel engineering and construction unit was $53 million, down 28% from $74 million last year. The company said new engineering and construction awards for the quarter totaled $2.6 billion, off 28% from $3.6 billion a year ago. Backlog at the end of the first quarter was $14 billion, compared with $16 billion in 1997.

A.T. Massey, Fluor’s low-sulfur coal mining unit, posted a 13% gain in operating profit, to $37 million from $32.7 million.

Chairman Peter Fluor said that performance of the two units was “consistent with our expectations.” And investors did not seem alarmed as Fluor’s stock closed unchanged for the day at $43.88 a share in moderate New York Stock Exchange trading.