Infrastructure consulting service company AECOM (NYSE: ACM) missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q2 CY2026, with sales falling 14.2% year on year to $3.59 billion. Its non-GAAP loss of $0.50 per share was significantly below analysts’ consensus estimates.

Is now the time to buy AECOM? Find out by accessing our full research report, it’s free.

Company Overview

Founded in 1990 when a group of engineers from five companies decided to merge, AECOM (NYSE: ACM) provides various infrastructure consulting services.

Revenue Growth

Examining a company’s long-term performance can provide clues about its quality. Even a bad business can shine for one or two quarters, but a top-tier one grows for years. Unfortunately, AECOM’s 2.6% annualized revenue growth over the last five years was sluggish. This fell short of our benchmarks and is a poor baseline for our analysis.

Long-term growth is the most important, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss new industry trends or demand cycles. AECOM’s performance shows it grew in the past but relinquished its gains over the last two years, as its revenue fell by 1.4% annually.

We can better understand the company’s revenue dynamics by analyzing its backlog, or the value of its outstanding orders that have not yet been executed or delivered. AECOM’s backlog reached $27.82 billion in the latest quarter and was flat over the last two years. Because this number is better than its revenue growth, we can see the company accumulated more orders than it could fulfill and deferred revenue to the future. This could imply elevated demand for AECOM’s products and services but raises concerns about capacity constraints.

This quarter, AECOM missed Wall Street’s estimates and reported a rather uninspiring 14.2% year-on-year revenue decline, generating $3.59 billion of revenue.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 9.4% over the next 12 months, an improvement versus the last two years. This projection is particularly noteworthy for a company of its scale and implies its newer products and services will spur better top-line performance.

ALSO WORTH WATCHING: Nvidia’s Quiet Partner. Nvidia’s chips cost a hundred grand. The connectors that make them work cost even more. One company makes them all.

Every AI server needs specialized infrastructure the chip companies don’t make. High-speed cables. Power connectors. Thermal sensors. This 90-year-old company built a monopoly on it. The AI boom just started. This stock is still flying under the radar. Claim The Stock Ticker Here for FREE.

Operating Margin

AECOM’s operating margin has more or less stayed the same over the last 12 months , averaging 4.6% over the last five years. This profitability was lousy for an industrials business and caused by its suboptimal cost structure.

Analyzing the trend in its profitability, AECOM’s operating margin might have fluctuated slightly but has generally stayed the same over the last five years. This raises questions about the company’s expense base because its revenue growth should have given it leverage on its fixed costs, resulting in better economies of scale and profitability.

This quarter, AECOM generated an operating margin profit margin of negative 2.1%, down 9.2 percentage points year on year. This contraction shows it was less efficient because its expenses increased relative to its revenue.

Earnings Per Share

We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) for the same reason as long-term revenue growth. Compared to revenue, however, EPS highlights whether a company’s growth is profitable.

AECOM’s EPS grew at 7.4% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This performance was better than its revenue growth but doesn’t tell us much about its business quality because its operating margin improvement was less than peers.

We can take a deeper look into AECOM’s earnings to better understand the drivers of its performance. A five-year view shows that AECOM has repurchased its stock, shrinking its share count by 13.6%. This tells us its EPS outperformed its revenue not because of increased operational efficiency but financial engineering, as buybacks boost per share earnings.

Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a shorter period to see if we are missing a change in the business.

For AECOM, its two-year annual EPS declines of 6.3% show it’s continued to underperform. These results were bad no matter how you slice the data.

In Q2, AECOM reported adjusted EPS of negative $0.50, down from $1.34 in the same quarter last year. This print missed analysts’ estimates. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects AECOM’s full-year EPS to grow 71.4% from $3.74 to $6.41.

Key Takeaways from AECOM’s Q2 Results

We struggled to find many positives in these results. Its full-year EBITDA guidance missed and its revenue fell short of Wall Street’s estimates. Overall, this was a softer quarter. The stock traded down 5.7% to $69.14 immediately following the results.

AECOM didn’t show its best hand this quarter, but does that create an opportunity to buy the stock right now? If you’re making that decision, you should consider the bigger picture of valuation, business qualities, as well as the latest earnings. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).