Dive Brief:
- With more than $14 billion in revenue, Turner Construction has overtaken Bechtel as the largest contractor by revenue, according to Engineering News-Record's Top 400 contractors list for 2021. Bechtel had held the top spot for the past two decades.
- Aggregate revenue for the top 400 reached $414.88 billion, up from $414.38 billion the year before. Median revenue for the top contractors reached $501.9 million last year, up from $492 million in 2019, ENR reported.
- Fluor, Kiewit and Whiting-Turner rounded out the top five contractors on the list. Fluor was absent from the list in 2020, as it was conducting an internal audit after a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into its financial reporting. Granite Construction was also absent due to an SEC investigation last year, but returned in 2021, earning the 25th spot with roughly $3.6 billion in revenue.
Dive Insight:
Turner's $14.4 billion in 2020 revenue was slightly lower than when it held the second-top spot in 2019 with $14.6 billion. Bechtel reported $15.9 billion in construction revenue in 2019 and $12.2 billion in 2020, a 19% drop in overall revenue.
In 2020, Bechtel lost ground on new work and backlog, which dropped by $2.5 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively. CEO Brendan Bechtel described the COVID-19 pandemic as "the toughest challenge in our company's history" at the time. Nevertheless, he said, the contractor's balance sheet was strong and Bechtel carried no debt.
In December 2020, Construction Dive named Turner as its Company of the Year for the way the contractor responded to racially charged incidents on jobsites head on. The award came a few months after Turner's joint venture with AECOM Hunt had finished SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, the largest NFL project to date.
Other major moves within the top 10 include Tutor Perini leaping to 7th place, after ranking 14th in 2020. AECOM dropped to 8th for 2021, after ranking 3rd in 2020 and DPR made an appearance on the top 10 after ranking 12th last year.
Here is a look at the top 10 firms and their revenue:
| Rank 2021 | Rank 2020 | Firm | City | Total Revenue (in Mil) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | The Turner Corp. | New York, New York | $14,410 |
| 2 | 1 | Bechtel | Reston, Virginia | $12,239 |
| 3 | N/A | Fluor | Irving, Texas | $11,672.4 |
| 4 | 5 | Kiewit Corp. | Omaha, Nebraska | $11,200.7 |
| 5 | 4 | The Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. | Baltimore, Maryland | $8,718.3 |
| 6 | 7 | STO Building Group Inc. | New York, New York | $8,080.0 |
| 7 | 14 | Tutor Perini Corp | Sylmar, California | $6,614.7 |
| 8 | 3 | AECOM | Los Angeles, California | $6,568.5 |
| 9 | 8 | Skanska USA | New York, New York | $6,535.1 |
| 10 | 12 | DPR Construction | Redwood City, California | $6,458 |
