Strabag ends 2016 with a record order backlog

Thomas Birtel, chief executive of Strabag, said that 2016 was a “satisfactory and eventful” year for the company. “We managed to acquire the minority interest in our subsidiary [civil engineering company] Ed Züblin in Stuttgart and of the remaining stake in Raiffeisen evolution, now called Strabag Real Estate.”

Both companies are now wholly owned by Strabag.

Consolidated group revenue was €12.4 billion, a drop of 6%.

Strabag specialises in construction and civil engineering, transportation infrastructure, tunnelling and construction-related services, within Europe including Russia.

The company said that new large orders in building construction and in transportation infrastructures in Germany helped push up the order backlog up 13% on the previous year. Growth in Chile, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria was balanced out by declines in Denmark, Russia and Romania.

There was a 5% increase in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to just over €855 million. The EBITDA margin grew from 6.2% to 6.9%.

Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) increased significantly by 25 % to nearly €425 million, which corresponds to an EBIT margin of 3.4% after 2.6% in 2015. For the financial year 2017, the company reiterated its goal for an EBIT margin of at least 3%.

The number of employees fell by 2% to 71,839, a decline mainly among blue-collar staff in human-resource-intensive regions outside of Europe, though staff levels also decreased noticeably in Russia.