KBR: A Strictly Cash Business (KBR)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

Kbr_logoKBR Inc. (NYSE:KBR) reported third quarter earnings before the market opened today. The company posted EPS of $0.44 on revenue of $3 billion, virtually on target with analysts’ estimates of $0.43 EPS and revenue of $2.97 billion. Despite having earnings that were not a disappointment like so many other companies, that is not even the most interesting thing about KBR’s announcement.

KBR has no real long-term debt. Zero. Zip. Nada. That’s pretty unusualfor a company that makes about $10 billion a year in revenue. How dothey do that in today’s environment? Cash flow from operations totaled$1 million (that’s right, just $1 million), while the company paid $498million in cash for acquisitions and $27 million in cash for capitalexpenditures. KBR also spent $196 million in cash in a stock buyback.All told, the company burned $751 million in cash during the thirdquarter, and has $1.11 billion left in the bank.

KBR’s stock closed yesterday at $14.07, more than 68% off its 52-week high.  Shares are also indicated up about 2% pre-market.

Paul Ausick
October 31, 2008

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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