The consolidated result improved by 48 percent to 585.7 million euros compared to the first Corona year 2020. The construction output increased by 4 percent to 16.13 billion euros and was thus just below the previous record year 2019, as the company announced on Friday morning. Sales also increased by 4 percent to 15.3 billion euros.
“As much as we are pleased to look back on this successful past year, we still have to concentrate on the current challenges,” emphasized CEO Thomas Birtel when presenting the figures, also with a view to Russia’s war against Ukraine. “In the interests of our company and in view of our responsibility for our 74,000 employees, we are taking every legally possible step to clearly distance ourselves from our Russian shareholder and to prevent any form of influence,” said the CEO. “We did that not least with the early decision not to pay a dividend to Rasperia.” The Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska holds a 27.8 percent stake in Strabag via MKAO “Rasperia Trading Limited”.
Strabag has a well-filled order book. In 2021, the order backlog increased by 22 percent to 22.5 billion euros – an unprecedented high. Operationally, the construction giant was on the right track. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased by 23 percent to 1.45 billion euros, the EBITDA margin improved from 8 to 9.5 percent.
The operating result (EBIT) increased “as a result of numerous positive earnings effects in all segments” by 42 percent from 630.7 to a record high of 896.1 million euros, the EBIT margin from 4.3 to “an extraordinarily high level” of 5 .9 percent. From 2022, the group is aiming for a sustainable EBIT margin of at least 4 percent.
Earnings per share (EPS) grew from EUR 3.85 to EUR 5.71 in 2021. Net income margin after minorities was 3.8 percent, up from 2.7 percent a year earlier. Strabag employed 73,606 people worldwide in 2021 – that was 1 percent fewer than in 2020.
The outlook for the current 2022 financial year is subject to uncertainty in view of the Ukraine war, but remains unchanged for the time being with a targeted construction output of 16.6 billion euros. This would correspond to the high level of 2019, the time before the pandemic. “Now we are already seeing war-related material bottlenecks and price increases, and their dynamic is much stronger than in the previous year,” emphasized the management at the same time. The effects of these developments on the business cannot yet be specifically quantified. Strabag hopes “to be able to overcome this crisis again with our proven strategy of diversification and regionality” and is sticking to its guidance at this point in time.
Source: Nachrichten
