Posted on June 1, 2026
ORION‘s $60 million Q1 acquisition came with two LLCs on the term sheet. One operating company. One equipment-leasing arm.
On February 3, Orion Group Holdings closed the acquisition of J.E. McAmis Inc. and JEM Marine Leasing LLC for approximately $60 million net of cash. J.E. McAmis is a 1973-vintage heavy marine specialist out of Chico, California. Jetty and breakwater construction, dredging, environmental restoration, dam and spillway work. Marine yards on the Columbia River in Longview, Washington and the St. Lucie Waterway in Florida. JEM Marine Leasing is the equipment-leasing arm.
Read what came with the deal. $34 million of marine and real estate assets. A Jones Act vessel fleet. A USACE and DOD client book running back over five decades. A $1.4 billion pipeline of pursued opportunities. And the senior PMs, estimators, and supers who run the work.
That’s a full-stack specialty platform. Equipment, capability, federal pre-qualification, bench. Not one axis. Four.
That’s the M&A story in marine right now. Integrated specialty platforms (the kind a 52-year-old federal civil firm can be) are getting consolidated into public buyers with cash on hand. The lane for new specialty entrants in federal civil marine is narrowing, not widening.
For mid-size private marine contractor owners with a federal book: the buyer side is paying on all four axes. Equipment, real estate, federal pre-qual, senior bench. Four numbers on the term sheet, not one.
