ICF International: Consultants to governments and corporations

Posted Mar 28th 2007 2:09PM by Larry Schutts
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Analyst Initiations, Technical Analysis

From its administration of the New Orleans Road Home Housing Program to its central involvement in the military's Focused Logistics Wargame effort, there is a firm in Fairfax, Virginia that government agencies and corporations turn to for help with the big problems.

ICF International Inc. (NASDAQ: ICFI) provides consulting and technology services to government and commercial clients in matters pertaining to energy, the environment, transportation, social programs, defense and homeland security. Offerings include economic and policy analyses, regulatory studies, market assessments, Web application development, geospatial information systems, data warehousing and e-government services. The firm serves clients worldwide, but it gets more than 70% of its revenue from U.S. government agencies.

The company surprised Wall Street last week, when it reported Q4 EPS of 65 cents and revenues of $113.9 million. Analysts had been expecting 30 cents and $99.97 million. Management also guided Q1 revenues to $125-$135 million ($96.94M consensus) and FY07 revenues to $480-$520 million ($398.99M consensus). The firm cited a high backlog level in support of the favorable outlook. Jefferies subsequently reiterated its "buy" rating on the stock and boosted its price target to $23.

hares popped on the news and have since been defining a bullish "flag" consolidation pattern. Stocks frequently exit flags moving in the same direction they were traveling when they entered them. In this case, that would be to the upside.

Brokers recommend the issue with two "strong buys" and two "buys". The ICFI P/E ratio (21.02), Price to Sales ratio (0.79), Price to Book ratio (2.29), Price to Free Cash Flow ratio (16.61), Sales Growth rate (119.93%) and EPS Growth rate (679.86%) compare favorably with industry, sector and S&P 500 averages. About 32% of the outstanding shares are held by institutional investors. Over the past fifty-two weeks, the stock has traded between $11.66 and $20.25. A stop-loss of $15.90 looks good here.

Larry Schutts is a contributing editor for Theflyonthewall.com and the Vice-President of Stockwinners.com.

Tags: flag, fundamental analysis, FundamentalAnalysis, ICF International, ICFI, IcfInternational, momentum, technical analysis, TechnicalAnalysis

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-30-2007 @ 3:36PM

rukidding said...

ICF is an absolute joke regarding its Road Home housing program!I live in New Orleans so I know whats really going on.Granted our governor and mayor are absymal but so is ICF.From the simplest task ICF been been pathetic.