Dive Brief:

• Granite Construction President and CEO Kyle Larkin said surface transportation reauthorization amounts being discussed in Congress are “significantly higher” than the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. 
• Larkin made his comments Thursday on Granite’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings call, where the company reported higher revenue and profits for the quarter and year. The firm also notched a record backlog of $6.97 billion, up 32% from a year ago. 
• With the IIJA expiring in September, Larkin said securing more public funding for infrastructure was a priority for lawmakers. “What we hear really from industry today is that there’s still bipartisan support,” Larkin said on the call. “There’s still a huge focus on coming up with another investment mechanism and I think the really good news is the investment amount is significantly higher.”

Dive Insight:

Larkin’s comments echoed those from other public construction companies, including Dallas-based AECOM, which said an expansion of highway funding would further extend the current transportation construction cycle. Larkin said he expects draft legislation to be available in March or April. 

But even before Congress approves any new dollars, Larkin said just half of the original IIJA money had actually been spent through November. The rest should provide stability in the infrastructure market for some time. “There’s still a really nice runway of spending to go, so that’ll last, luckily, for a few more years,” Larkin said. 

Beyond money for highways, Larkin said Watsonville, California-based Granite is also among 11 firms competing for around $40 billion in border infrastructure work on the southern border. In March, Granite won the first border wall contract of President Donald Trump’s second term for a $70 million job to build 7 miles of barrier in Hidalgo County, Texas. 

The Trump administration has accelerated the awards timeline for new border work, Larkin said, and he expects new contracts to be announced in June or July. But that compressed schedule means previously smaller segments of work have been bundled into bigger overall jobs. 

Since Granite has focused in recent years on taking on smaller work packages, which offer more near-term visibility into schedule and cost, Larkin said the firm would be choosy with any additional work in that area. 

“These contracts are getting larger than what we originally contemplated, so the risk profile is changing a little bit on those to one that’s just giving us reason to be more disciplined in our pursuits and ensuring that we can not only just win the work but be successful in delivering it for ourselves and for our clients,” Larkin said. “So we’ll see.”

Granite reported $1.17 billion in revenue and net income of $52.03 million for the fourth quarter, a rise of 19% and 25% from a year ago. For the year, revenue reached $4.42 billion, a 10% gain from 2024. Profits of $193 million for the year were 53% higher than what the company reported in 2024.

Looking ahead, Granite said it would continue to be on the hunt for more acquisitions 2026, particularly on the materials side of its business. On its second quarter 2025 conference call, Granite announced it had purchased Hattiesburg, Mississippi-based Warren Paving and Arroyo Grande, California-headquartered Papich Construction for a combined price of $710 million. That was followed in October by a deal to buy Carson City, Nevada-based Cinderlite Trucking. 

Executives said to expect more of the same this year, as Granite continues to build out its “home-market” strategy where it supplies materials from its owned aggregate plants for infrastructure projects in the areas surrounding those facilities. 

“While we are selective in our pursuits, we expect to achieve our goal of completing several strategic acquisitions in 2026,” said Staci Woolsey, Granite’s chief financial officer, on the call.