Basis of Presentation

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2012

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Basis of Presentation

Basis of Presentation

The condensed consolidated financial statements included herein have been prepared by Granite Construction Incorporated (“we,” “us,” “our,” “Company” or “Granite”) without audit, pursuant to the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and should be read in conjunction with our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011. Certain information and footnote disclosures normally included in financial statements prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“U.S. GAAP”) have been condensed or omitted, although we believe the disclosures which are made are adequate to make the information presented not misleading. Further, the condensed consolidated financial statements reflect, in the opinion of management, all normal recurring adjustments necessary to state fairly our financial position at March 31, 2012 and 2011 and the results of our operations and cash flows for the periods presented. The December 31, 2011 condensed consolidated balance sheet data was derived from audited consolidated financial statements, but does not include all disclosures required by U.S. GAAP.

We prepared the accompanying condensed consolidated financial statements on the same basis as our annual consolidated financial statements except for the adoption of the following new accounting standards in the first quarter of 2012:

• Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) No. 2011-05, Comprehensive Income (Topic 220): Presentation of Comprehensive Income, which eliminates the option to present the components of other comprehensive income as part of the statement of stockholders’ equity or as a footnote to the condensed consolidated financial statements, and provides the option of presenting comprehensive income in a continuous statement of comprehensive income. This standard became effective for our quarter ended March 31, 2012 and requires prior year amounts to conform to current year presentation. For all periods presented the comprehensive loss was equal to the net loss; therefore, a separate statement of comprehensive loss is not included in the accompanying condensed consolidated financial statements.

• ASU No. 2011-04, Fair Value Measurement (Topic 820):Amendments to Achieve Common Fair Value Measurement and Disclosure Requirements in U.S. GAAP and International Financial Reporting Standards, which clarifies the application of certain existing fair value measurement guidance and expands the disclosure requirements for fair value measurements that are estimated using significant unobservable (Level 3) inputs and for assets and liabilities disclosed but not recorded at fair value. This standard was effective for our quarter ended March 31, 2012. As a result of this new standard, we disclosed the level of the fair value hierarchy within which the fair value measurements of assets and liabilities disclosed but not recorded at fair value were categorized (see Note 4). Other items in this new standard had no impact to our condensed consolidated financial statements.

• ASU No. 2011-08, Intangibles - Goodwill and Other (Topic 350): Testing Goodwill for Impairment, which gives companies the option to first assess qualitative factors to determine whether it is more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying value when assessing goodwill for impairment. If it is determined that it is more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit exceeds its carrying value, further impairment analysis is not necessary. However, if it is concluded otherwise, we are required to perform step one of the goodwill impairment test. This standard was effective for annual goodwill impairment tests performed for our 2012 fiscal year and early adoption was permitted. For the annual impairment test performed for our 2011 fiscal year, we elected to perform step one of the impairment test and did not apply this new standard. Therefore, this new standard had no impact to our condensed consolidated financial statements.

Interim results are subject to significant seasonal variations and the results of operations for the three months ended March 31, 2012 are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for the full year.