Income up, backlog grows for Skanska

Contractor Skanska has announced a jump of 26% in operating income for the first quarter of 2014, amounting to SEK656 million (€72.5 million), up from SEK519 million (€57 million) in 2013.

The Swedish firm also announced a 1% drop in revenue, which remained flat compared to 2013 at SEK27.9 billion (€3 billion), compared with SEK28.2 billion (€3.1 billion).

However, the mixed bag of results is coupled with a bright outlook with order bookings in construction totalling SEK32.5 billion (€3.6 billion) for the first quarter, up 33% on 2013’s figure of SEK24.3 billion (€2.7 billion). This took the contractor’s backlog up to SEK145.7 billion (€16 billion).

Skanska’s president and CEO, Johan Karlström, said, “During the first quarter of 2014, Skanska delivered improved results, with significantly higher order bookings and increased operating income compared to last year.

“We can see that the overall market outlook has improved. There are signs of underlying improvement in the European economy and the recent events in Eastern Ukraine have to date not affected our operations."

He added, "The underlying growth trend in our US operations is continuing and we can clearly see the improved UK and Polish economy translating into new orders.”