Since April 5 -- the day the separation was completed -- KBR"s shares have jumped 61 percent, and they have nearly doubled in value since their New York Stock Exchange debut last fall.
Shares of Halliburton, meanwhile, have risen 11 percent since the formal split in April and 9 percent since KBR"s initial public offering on Nov. 15.
KBR"s stock took off this month after the company announced several new contracts that gave analysts and investors confidence in its business model and suggested it was fixing problems faster than expected.
"People think KBR is back," said Barry Bannister, industry analyst with Stifel Nicolaus in
But Halliburton also has benefited from the breakup, said company spokeswoman Cathy Mann. A motive for the separation was to unlock the value of KBR, which was not easily seen within Halliburton, she said.
One measure of Halliburton"s strength is second-quarter earnings, which showed net income of $1.5 billion, including a $933 million gain from the separation from KBR.
The result for the April-June period, which amounted to $1.62 per share, compared with income of $591 million, or 55 cents a share, in second-quarter 2006.
Revenue in the quarter rose to $3.7 billion from $3.1 billion a year ago.
KBR"s earnings report is scheduled for Aug. 2.
At least in terms of new work, KBR is having a good summer. On July 12, it was awarded a contract to manage construction of Saudi Aramco and Dow Chemical"s Ras Tanura facility in
In a report,
Several days earlier, KBR announced a $2.8 billion contract to build a liquefied natural gas project for Sonatrach in
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