Kaiser Engineers Merging With Unit of Its Virginia Parent Firm

Kaiser Engineers Group, one of the largest engineering firms in the West, is being merged with another subsidiary of its corporate parent, American Capital & Research, the holding company announced Wednesday.

Kaiser will combine with ICF Inc., a Fairfax, Va., consulting firm, and the resulting company will be called ICF Kaiser Engineers. Its headquarters will be in Oakland, where Kaiser is now based.

American Capital & Research, also of Fairfax, acquired financially troubled Kaiser last June from a consortium of banks led by Bank of America. Kaiser’s Australian and Asian operations were then spun off.

ICF Kaiser Engineers will be a subsidiary of another new firm, ICFcorp International, which is wholly owned by American Capital.

American Capital said Kaiser, which was losing $1 million a month when it was sold last June, is now earning $1 million a month. “That’s what a company its size should be doing,” said William C. Stitt, chairman and president of ICFcorp International.

Stitt said Kaiser’s $70-million debt has been eliminated and that American Capital had bought a portion of the debt at a deep discount and forgiven it.