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Vienna, 18 February 2010
Output Volume
STRABAG SE, Central and Eastern Europe’s largest construction company, generated an output volume of € 13,021.01 million in the 2009 financial year. As already forecast in the report for the third quarter 2009, the output volume stands slightly below the level of the previous year. Increases in Germany (largely due to acquisitions) and Poland helped to compensate declines in several eastern European markets, above all in Russia.
Due to the selective order acceptance and the difficult financing environment for private clients, the output volume in the Building Construction & Civil Engineering segment fell as expected by 18 % to € 4,773.47 million. The decline in the Transportation Infrastructures segment was significantly less, dropping only 4 % to € 6,000.51 million. Here, too, currency depreciation in a number of important STRABAG markets in CEE curbed the development of output volume when calculated in euro.
The output volume in the Special Divisions & Concessions segment grew by 47 % to auf € 2,077.58 million. In Germany alone, the output volume more than doubled thanks to the acquisition-driven growth of business in Property and Facility Management. Major tunnelling projects in Hungary, Switzerland and Canada also contributed to the gains.
Order Backlog
The order backlog reached nearly € 14 billion, a plus of 5 % year on year. In the Building Construction & Civil Engineering segment, Germany and Austria remained nearly unchanged, Switzerland and Hungary showed a significant plus, and the remaining Eastern European STRABAG markets reported declines. The order backlog of the Transportation Infrastructures segment received significant positive impulses from several new motorway projects in Poland and Germany. Orders in these two countries – in Property and Facility Management as well as in tunnelling and concessions – also helped boost the order backlog in the Special Divisions & Concessions segment.
Employees
The number of employees grew by 3 % to 75,548. Employee numbers were up in Property and Facility Management in Germany (due to acquisitions), in Transportation Infrastructures in Poland, and in Africa, while STRABAG reduced capacities in Russia and the Middle East.
Outlook
Hans Peter Haselsteiner, CEO of STRABAG SE, reaffirms his 2009 forecast and provides a first outlook for the 2010 financial year: “We continue to expect the group result after minorities for the 2009 financial year to remain at about the previous year’s level. Overall, a stable trend in comparison to 2009 can be observed for the 2010 financial year as well, both in terms of output volume as well as regarding margins.”
From today’s point of view, the output volume for 2010 should show only minor variations from 2009 in all three segments. In a country-by-country forecast, the projected development in Poland is particularly striking: after an output volume of € 993 million in 2009, STRABAG expects the acquisition of several newly acquired projects – including some in the first quarter of 2010 – and the high order backlog at the end of 2009 (€ 2.5 billion) to result in growth to € 1.5 billion. By comparison, the output volume in Hungary, Germany and Slovakia could fall slightly.
STRABAG SE will publish its detailed financial figures for 2009 on 30 April 2010 at 7:30 a.m. (CET) by e-mail and at the corporate website at www.strabag.com.
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STRABAG SE is one of Europe’s leading construction groups. With some 75,500 employees, STRABAG generated a construction output volume of € 13.0 billion in the 2009 financial year. From its core markets of Austria and Germany, STRABAG is present via its numerous subsidiaries in all countries of Eastern and South-East Europe, in selected markets in Western Europe and on the Arabian Peninsula. STRABAG’s activities span the entire construction industry (Building Construction and Civil Engineering, Transportation Infrastructures, Tunnelling) and cover the entire value-added chain in the field of construction. More information is available at www.strabag.com.
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