Jacobs Engineering Net Income Falls 9%

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. reported lower quarterly earnings but beat Wall Street’s lowered expectations.

For its fiscal third quarter ended June 30, net income for the Pasadena-based engineering and technical services firm fell 9% to $29.9 million, or 52 cents a share, from $32.9 million, or 58 cents, a year earlier. Revenue was unchanged at $1.1 billion.

“We are obviously disappointed,” Chief Executive Noel G. Watson said in a statement released along with the earnings report after the market closed Monday.

Still, the results beat analysts’ revised average estimates of 51 cents a share, according to Thomson First Call. Shares of Jacobs gained $1.54, or 4%, on Tuesday to $39.12 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company previously had said the quarter would come in short of expectations after a major customer canceled one project and suspended work on several others.

In a June research note, Alex Rygiel of Friedman Billings Ramsey said this would affect revenue “over the next couple of quarters.”

John W. Prosser Jr., Jacobs’ chief financial officer, said some of the suspended projects could be resumed within a year.

Other problems in the quarter included continued delays in government projects, mostly in the buildings and facilities business.

“In spite of these events, our business prospects remain strong,” Watson said. Jacobs recently announced that it had been awarded a five-year, $130-million contract by the Army.