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.
