Sterling Infrastructure STRL) has been a notable standout of this week’s earnings lineup, seeing its stock surge nearly 70% since delivering blowout Q1 results on Monday evening.
Shares were up another 10% in Wednesday’s trading session to a new all-time high of $886, as investors have been reattracted to Sterling’s massive revenue growth and margin expansion.
As one of the leading civil construction and infrastructure services providers in the U.S., Sterling has been moving away from low-bid highway projects and redeploying resources toward higher-margin E-Infrastructure opportunities.
This selective bidding strategy is improving profitability, with Sterling capitalizing on the AI data center boom.
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Sterling’s Triple-Digit Profitability Growth
Delivering a record-breaking Q1 performance, Sterling wowed investors with triple-digit growth across several profitability metrics compared to the prior year quarter.
Most notably, Q1 adjusted net income increased 122% to $111.3 million. This translated into adjusted EPS of $3.59, which was up 120% from $1.63 per share a year ago and crushed expectations of $2.29 by nearly 57%.
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Furthermore, Q1 EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA increased 115% and 107%, respectively. These gains reflected higher revenue, improved operational efficiency, and stronger margins.
Being magnified by its increased margin profile, Sterling’s Q1 sales jumped more than 90% year over year to $825.67 million and impressively topped estimates of $585.36 million by 41%. Sterling’s E-Infrastructure segment, which supports large-scale AI data center development, saw a 174% revenue surge, driven by the shift toward multi-thousand-acre data center campuses.
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Record Backlog & Strong Guidance
Highlighting strong demand from data center and semiconductor-related projects, Sterling reported a record signed backlog of $3.88 billion and a record combined backlog of $5.2 billion.
Given that more than 90% of Sterling’s E-Infrastructure signed backlog is tied to mission-critical projects like data centers, the company has unusually high revenue visibility, which led to management confidently raising its guidance.
Sterling now expects FY26 sales to be around $3.7 billion-$3.8 billion, coming in ahead of Wall Street’s consensus of $3.12 billion or 25% growth.
It’s also noteworthy that E-Infrastructure projects often carry mid 20% adjusted operating margins, significantly richer than traditional highway work. Keeping this in mind, Sterling lifted its FY26 EPS guidance range to $18.40-$19.05, well ahead of the consensus of $13.76 or 26% growth.
Bottom Line
It’s easy to see why investors are so excited about Sterling Infrastructure’s stock right now, as the company appears to have superior operational leverage in higher-margin projects. Following a sharp post-earnings rally, Sterling Infrastructure stock currently lands a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
That said, a buy rating could be on the way as EPS revisions will likely move higher for both FY26 and FY27, and will help to smooth Sterling’s forward P/E premium of 61X.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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