Sterling Reports Record First Quarter Results and Raises Full Year 2026 Guidance

THE WOODLANDS, Texas, May 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Sterling Infrastructure, Inc. (NASDAQ:STRL) ("Sterling" or the "Company") today announced strong financial results for the first quarter of 2026.

The financial comparisons herein are to the prior year quarter, unless otherwise noted.

First Quarter 2026

Results:

• Revenues of $825.7 million increased by 92%. The recently acquired CEC business contributed $156.1 million to revenue in the quarter.
• Net income of $96.0 million, or $3.09 per diluted share, increases of 143% and 141% respectively.
• EBITDA⁽¹⁾ of $155.2 million, an increase of 115%.

Adjusted Results:

• Adjusted net income⁽¹⁾ of $111.3 million, or $3.59 per diluted share, increases of 122% and 120% respectively.
• Adjusted EBITDA⁽¹⁾ of $166.6 million, an increase of 107%.

Additional Financial Metrics:

• Cash flows from operations totaled $165.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2026.
• Cash and cash equivalents totaled $511.9 million at March 31, 2026.
• Backlog at March 31, 2026 was $3.80 billion, up 78% from the prior year period. CEC contributed $592.0 million to backlog; excluding this contribution, backlog increased 51%.
• Combined backlog⁽²⁾ at March 31, 2026 was $5.15 billion, up 131% from the prior year period. CEC contributed $1.88 billion to combined backlog; excluding this contribution, combined backlog increased 46%.
• Share repurchases totaled $12.3 million in the quarter at an average price of $305.14 per share.

CEO Remarks and Outlook

"We are off to an exceptional start in 2026, with first quarter adjusted net income increasing 122% to deliver adjusted diluted EPS of $3.59. Revenue grew 92%, including organic growth of over 55%, and adjusted EBITDA margins remained strong at over 20%. We also generated robust operating cash flow of $166 million," stated Joe Cutillo, Sterling's Chief Executive Officer. "We are incredibly proud of our teams for delivering another outstanding quarter."

"Looking ahead, our confidence in our ability to continue generating exceptional results has only strengthened. Bid and award activity in early 2026 was strong, reinforcing our visibility into future growth. Notably, during the quarter, we were awarded the initial phase of site development work for a large, multi-year semiconductor fabrication campus. Additionally, CEC was awarded several large projects that contributed to a $1.2 billion increase in its combined backlog during the quarter.

We ended the quarter with signed backlog of $3.8 billion, up 78%, and combined backlog of $5.15 billion, up 131%. First quarter book-to-burn ratios were 2.1x for backlog and 3.5x for combined backlog. In addition, our pipeline of high-probability future phase work continues to expand and now exceeds $1.3 billion. Taken together, our signed backlog, unsigned awards, and future phase opportunities provide visibility into a total addressable pool of work approaching $6.5 billion, an increase of approximately $2 billion since year-end 2025."

Mr. Cutillo continued, "Taking a deeper look at our segment results in the first quarter, in E-Infrastructure Solutions, we achieved 174% revenue growth and 177% adjusted operating income growth, driven by a combination of strong organic growth and contributions from the CEC acquisition. Within our legacy site development business, revenue increased 102%, and operating margins expanded both year-over-year and sequentially. Trends in the electrical business remain positive, with revenue increasing 78% compared to the pre-acquisition first quarter and margins that were in line with expectations.

E-Infrastructure signed backlog increased 123% over the prior year first quarter, or 74% excluding CEC. Mission-critical projects—including data centers, manufacturing, and semiconductor facilities—represented over 90% of our E-Infrastructure backlog at quarter end. We are also gaining traction in our efforts to cross-sell CEC's mission-critical electrical services and Sterling's best-in-class site development services. We are now in active construction on two data center campuses where we are delivering site and electrical services in an integrated capacity.

Transportation Solutions revenue increased 10% and adjusted operating income grew 26%, driven by strong performance in our Rocky Mountain market, excellent execution, and favorable mix shift toward higher-margin projects. The planned downsizing of our low-bid Texas heavy highway business remains on track and is expected to support margin expansion as we progress through 2026.

In Building Solutions, revenue increased 3%, reflecting a modest acceleration in homebuilder activity, while adjusted operating income declined 42% against a challenging comparison in the year-ago quarter. Although we are encouraged by the year-over-year increase in revenue in the quarter, we anticipate that conditions will remain challenging through 2026 as affordability constraints weigh on prospective homebuyers. We remain bullish on the multi-year demand trends in our key geographies, but expect soft market conditions to persist in the near term."

"Our strong first quarter results strengthen our conviction that 2026 will be another outstanding year for Sterling. We are raising our 2026 guidance to reflect the strong momentum across the business, our expanded backlog and future phase position, and increasing visibility into future opportunities. At the midpoint, our 2026 guidance would represent 51% year-over-year revenue growth, 72% growth in adjusted diluted earnings per share, and 70% growth in adjusted EBITDA—positioning us for another year of exceptional performance and sustained value creation," Mr. Cutillo concluded.

Full Year 2026 Guidance

• Revenue of $3.70 billion to $3.80 billion
• Net Income of $513 million to $533 million
• Diluted EPS of $16.50 to $17.15
• EBITDA⁽¹⁾ of $801 million to $831 million

Full Year 2026 Adjusted Guidance

Please see the "Adjusted Net Income Guidance Reconciliation" and "EBITDA Guidance Reconciliation" sections below for reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP measures and comparable 2025 results.

• Adjusted Net Income⁽¹⁾ of $572 million to $592 million
• Adjusted Diluted EPS⁽¹⁾ of $18.40 to $19.05
• Adjusted EBITDA⁽¹⁾ of $843 million to $873 million

Conference Call

Sterling's management will hold a conference call to discuss these results and recent corporate developments on Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. ET/8:00 a.m. CT. Interested parties may participate in the call by dialing (800) 836-8184. Please call in 10 minutes before the conference call is scheduled to begin and ask for the Sterling Infrastructure call. To coincide with the conference call, Sterling will post a slide presentation at www.strlco.com on the Events & Presentations section of the Investor Relations tab. Following management's opening remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

To listen to a simultaneous webcast of the call, please go to the Company's website at www.strlco.com at least 15 minutes early to download and install any necessary audio software. If you are unable to listen live, the conference call webcast will be archived on the Company's website for 30 days.

About Sterling

Sterling operates through a variety of subsidiaries within three segments specializing in E-Infrastructure, Transportation and Building Solutions in the United States, primarily across the Southern, Northeastern, Mid-Atlantic and Rocky Mountain regions and the Pacific Islands. E-Infrastructure Solutions provides advanced, large-scale site development services and mission-critical electrical services for data centers, semiconductor fabrication, manufacturing, distribution centers, warehousing, power generation and more. Transportation Solutions includes infrastructure and rehabilitation projects for highways, roads, bridges, airports, ports, rail and storm drainage systems. Building Solutions includes residential and commercial concrete foundations for single-family and multi-family homes, parking structures, elevated slabs, other concrete work, plumbing services, and surveys for new single-family residential builds. From strategy to operations, we are committed to sustainability by operating responsibly to safeguard and improve society's quality of life. Caring for our people and our communities, our customers and our investors – that is The Sterling Way.

Joe Cutillo, CEO, "We build and service the infrastructure that enables our economy to run,

our people to move and our country to grow."

Important Information for Investors and Stockholders

Non-GAAP Measures

This press release contains "Non-GAAP" financial measures as defined under Regulation G of the amended U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The Company reports financial results in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"), but the Company believes that certain Non-GAAP financial measures provide useful supplemental information to investors regarding the underlying business trends and performance of the Company's ongoing operations and are useful for period-over-period comparisons of those operations.

Non-GAAP measures may include adjusted net income, adjusted operating income, adjusted EPS, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, in each case excluding the impacts of certain identified items. The excluded items represent items that the Company does not consider to be representative of its normal operations. The Company believes that these measures are useful for investors to review, because they provide a consistent measure of the underlying financial results of the Company's ongoing business and, in the Company's view, allow for a supplemental comparison against historical results and expectations for future performance. Furthermore, the Company uses each of these to measure the performance of the Company's operations for budgeting and forecasting, as well as for determining employee incentive compensation. However, Non-GAAP measures should not be considered as substitutes for net income, EPS, or other data prepared and reported in accordance with GAAP and should be viewed in addition to the Company's reported results prepared in accordance with GAAP.

Reconciliations of Non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are provided in the tables included within this press release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains statements that are considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, which may include statements about: the anticipated benefits of the CEC acquisition; our business strategy; our financial strategy; our industry outlook; our guidance; our expected earnings and margin growth; our pool of future work; and our plans, objectives, expectations, forecasts, outlook and intentions. All of these types of statements, other than statements of historical fact included in this press release, are forward-looking statements. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "could," "would," "should," "expect," "plan," "project," "intend," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "potential," "pursue," "target," "guidance," "continue," the negative of such terms or other comparable terminology. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are largely based on our expectations, which reflect estimates and assumptions made by our management. These estimates and assumptions reflect our best judgment based on currently known market conditions and other factors. Although we believe such estimates and assumptions to be reasonable, they are inherently uncertain and involve a number of risks and uncertainties that are beyond our control. In addition, management's assumptions about future events may prove to be inaccurate. Management cautions all readers that the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are not guarantees of future performance, and we cannot assure any reader that such statements will be realized or the forward-looking events and circumstances will occur. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements due to factors listed in the "Risk Factors" section in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and elsewhere in those filings. Additional factors or risks that we currently deem immaterial, that are not presently known to us or that arise in the future could also cause our actual results to differ materially from our expected results. Given these uncertainties, investors are cautioned that many of the assumptions upon which our forward-looking statements are based are likely to change after the date the forward-looking statements are made. The forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements for any reason, whether as a result of new information, future events or developments, changed circumstances, or otherwise, notwithstanding any changes in our assumptions, changes in business plans, actual experience or other changes. These cautionary statements qualify all forward-looking statements attributable to us or persons acting on our behalf.

Company Contact:

Sterling Infrastructure, Inc.

Noelle Dilts, VP Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy

281-214-0795

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SOURCE Sterling Infrastructure, Inc.