Things are going very well for Denmark’s largest contractor group, Aarsleff, which is also the Danish lead in the FLC consortium that will build the Fehmarn Tunnel. In the past year, the group had a turnover of over 2,4 billion euros, which resulted in earnings (EBIT) of over 110 million euros.
In the next year, Aarsleff expects continued increasing activity in the construction market, whereas activity in construction is expected to decrease. Within construction, the group expects earnings to rise from 33,5 million this financial year to 47-50 million euros next year.
Infrastructure takes up a good amount of space
It has been a turbulent year for the construction industry, with lumps in the supply chain, rising energy and raw material prices and problems in obtaining qualified labour. Despite this, the order backlog for 2023 is high, and complicated infrastructure projects such as Copenhagens Light Rail and the Fehmarn connection continue to take up a lot of space, the annual report states.
In the coming year, Aarsleff expects increasing activity on the Fehmarn contracts.
Element factory and tunnel portal
During 2022, in particular, the establishment of the element factory and the portal construction site have filled the construction site in Rødbyhavn. Wicotec Kirkebjerg A/S (a company in the Aarsleff group, ed) designs and executes the extensive engineering contract in the element factory. Because the Fehmarnbelt tunnel is designed to last for at least 120 years, there are particularly high demands on the casting work and thus also the climate control in the halls, where production begins at the turn of the year. A production that must be uniform, regardless of the fact that work is done around the clock, seven days a week for the next almost four years, writes Aarsleff in the annual report.
Historic for the fourth year in a row
– For the fourth year in a row, the Aarsleff Group can present a historically positive result. Therefore, a big thank you must go to our dedicated employees who, in classic Aarsleff style, have been ready for change and solution-oriented and have contributed to a nice bottom and top line. But in the construction industry we also feel the uncertain and changeable times with rising raw material and material prices, material shortages and of course inflation and rising interest rates. At the moment we are looking into a continued turbulent time where the market is changing and construction is expected to slow down. On the other hand, time calls for improvements to the infrastructure and a more green transition. Here we see a good match with our competences in areas such as offshore wind farms, establishment of electricity cables and district heating as well as Power-to-X systems, says Aarsleff’s managing director Jesper Kristian Jacobsen in a comment on the annual accounts.
