Flatiron Corporation Began in 1947

¶ … Flatiron Corporation began in 1947 as a small construction company and has sense gone on to become one of the United State's premier bridge and other large public works construction companies. The company has recently returned to its original name and has diversified significantly, since it was purchased by the Netherland's-based Royal BAM Group. The work it does is mainly in the western United States and now consists of five smaller companies, whose main headquarters are still in Longmont Colorado. The five subsidiary companies are Flatiron Constructors Inc., Flatiron Constructors, Inc. Intermountain, FCI Constructors, Inc. Southern Division, FCI Constructors, Inc. Northern Division and Interbeton, Inc. all operating from different U.S. locations. Though most of Flatiron's work is national in 2004 Flatiron expanded to Canada and opened an office there to oversee two ongoing civil projects.

The parent company the Royal BAM Group is an international leader in the market in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Germany and the United States. The company was purchased by Royal BAM in 1993 and has since grown to become one of the largest of the civil construction companies in the United States. The ownership of the company by the Royal BAM group allows the company to continue to expand and work on some of the largest projects available in bid to date, including large bridge and transportation projects. (Flatiron Construction Corp. Website at: www.flatironcorp.com) Flatiron Construction is number 82 on the ENR top 400. (ENR 400 Website at: http://enr.construction.com/people/topLists/topContractor/topCont_51-100.asp)

Currently, Flatiron Corp. can boast two major works, recently acquired by the FCI Constructors in California the Exposition Light Rail Transit system and the new Foothill Transportation Corridor-South, a new 15-mile toll road in Orange County California. These two major projects will run concurrently, showing the ability of Flatiron to seriously invest in very large, time, labor and resource heavy projects. According to Flatiron the support needed to fund and successfully complete such large projects concurrently is partly as a result of the support it receives from the parent organization the Royal BAM Group, in expertise, resources, experience and financial backing. "Flatiron Constructors works on complex transportation projects, often requiring specialized construction techniques such as deep foundations, tunneling, float-in cofferdams, segmental construction and specialized marine operations." (Flatiron Website at: www.flatironcorp.com)

Each of the subsidiary companies DBA have additional focus and specialties in the civil construction area beginning with a simple extensions of the company in 2005 to the Intermountain subsidiary which practices the same specialties in the Rocky Mountain Region as well as FCI Constructors Inc. The California based office which specializes in "urban construction services for civil projects such as bridges, highway widening and extensive work for major highways, " adds tot the diversity of the company. (Flatiron Website at: www.flatironcorp.com) Interbeton, Inc. further expands the ability of the company by offering extensive heavy marine skills such as "immersed tube tunnels, marine projects, jacked box tunnels, ocean outfalls, and large diameter marine foundation projects." (Flatiron Website at: www.flatironcorp.com) the owner group Royal BAM Group brings to the table, civil engineering skill, building, dredging, mechanical, real estate development and consulting and has overall revenues exceeding 11 billion dollars per year.

Hoovers, financial information network offers this to say about the Flatiron Construction Corporation

There's not a Bridge Too Far for Flatiron Construction (as long as it's in the U.S.). The company, one of the largest bridge builders in the U.S., is part of Dutch construction and dredging giant Royal BAM. Flatiron Construction, which includes Flatiron Constructors and FCI Constructors, provides design/build and construction services for transportation and heavy civil projects. It has participated in such projects as California's Carquinez Strait Bridge and the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge. The company's name had been changed back from HBG Constructors, Inc., in 2004 to refocus on the unit's historic name. Flatiron, founded in 1947, was named after the rock formations near Boulder, Colorado. (www.hoovers.com)

The company is private, i.e. not publicly traded so some information on the financials are lacking but Hoovers sites that with a fiscal year ending in December the company has 374.9 million in sales annually and employs 743 employees. (www.hoovers.com)

The corporation offers comprehensive services from design to construction, also including a service as general contractor for very large civil projects. The company also frequently acts as consultants, GCs and CMs, engineers, on specialty area projects including Airports, Bridges, Environmental, Highways & Interchanges, Pavement Repair, Rail, Tunnels, Water & Dams. Services frequently needed by large and small states and regional governments. This is especially true of the current infrastructural system, as population growth as well as general age of existing structures is warranting a nationwide need for repairs, expansions and added transformational options. This work for Flatiron and its few competitors in the U.S. will likely grow considerably, especially in the area of repair and replacement as the nations bridges and roads begin to fail, as a result of budgetary neglect, overuse and simple old age. (Gribbin 1) There is no question that many large projects to repair those infrastructural works which are salvageable, erplace those which are not and build alternative transportation resources will likely keep large civil construction corporations very busy in the near future.

Flatiron has several business advantages in this market, as one of the leading and older firms it is given great opportunity to compete for contracts that other organizations may not, and name recognition has given it the opportunity to be a go to organization for consultation and other diversified project support. Even if Flatiron does not get the contract to build a project it has the expertise to serve as a consultation resource for many agencies, and can likely get a better idea of future contract offerings in different regions through this service and its design services. The experts at the company will offer a substantial incentive to civil units seeking someone who has strong experience in the field of transportation projects and the diversity of the company, in marine, bridge, airport and so many other transportation construction issues lends a good name to their ability to answer many needs that the aging bridges and roads in the U.S. have. The organization is also better able to finance very large and long lasting projects, with the capital support of the parent company.

Though financial information is limited to annual budget the company and all its subsidiary offices have many very large ongoing and new projects awarded to them and in most cases the design to build functions are being utilized. The fact that there are so many ongoing large projects supported by Flatiron is testimony to their fiscal health. The needs of a company that has such large fund projects in progress for significant periods of time is to allocate resources effectively to appropriately handle all the functions it has won bids on. In other words the relatively recent diversification of the company must be carefully accorded with to make certain that no single entity is spreading itself to thin and that the larger company has resources to meet the needs of all ongoing projects. Additionally, as with most construction projects, payment is made upon completion, though often very large projects are based on timelines that correspond with completion tasks. For this reason it is essential that Flatiron and all the subsidiaries have ongoing multistage projects in the works at all time to make sure that when one project begins another is ending and therefore making final payment available for resource financing and/or lending abilities.

The large scale construction trade is a relatively elite set of contractors, many of whom specialize in specific construction areas, such as road repair, bridge building ect. What makes Flatiron different is that they are so diversified in the market and that they offer comprehensive services to organizations utilizing their services. As the technology for civil building continues to become more and more challenging, Flatiron seems to have answered by gaining more and more skill sets.

Remaining a private company far longer than many similar companies have, Flatiron's parent company is a public company on the European market (Royal BAM Group) which has shown steady growth, more than doubling in annual revenue between 2002-2003 from 3,579 million in 2002 to 7,770 million (EUROS) in 2003 no doubt in part to growth of acquisitions and expansion, such as in the case of Flatiron. This can be seen in its corresponding figures on building, plant and equipment holding growth as well as its intangible assets growth during this period and steadily since then. (Royal BAM Group Website: http://www.bam.nl/baminternet/baminternet/portalen/koninklijkebam_en/index.jsp)

With this support Flatiron can feel itself a confident party in the large civil construction trade, as if one aspect of the company is expanding beyond its capabilities another aspect can support it, at least temporarily until the project and/or area creates a foothold on finances, reaching a break even ratio. It is this type of expansion that has created the ability of the organization to diversify so extensively and continue to expand operations, nationally and with Canada at least partly internationally.