Lemminkäinen’s three-year plan

Finland-based contractor Lemminkäinen has outlined a three-year profit growth and competitiveness strategy, vowing to improve its performance.

The company seeks to increase shareholder value through focus on the balance sheet, more competitive operating models and profitable growth in infrastructure projects in Northern Europe.

Lemminkäinen estimates that the outlook for Infrastructure projects in Norway and Sweden are positive, where there are long-term programmes in place.

The market in Finland has weakened from the previous year Lemminkäinen reports, so the focus will remain on urban growth centre.

The company added that it will not start any new projects in Russia, due to the weakened market.

Casimir Lindholm, president and CEO, said, “During the coming years, Lemminkäinen’s target is to improve its competitiveness in all business segments and to build a solid foundation to enable profitable growth.

“We will implement best practices across segments and country borders in order to utilise economies of scale.”

Financial report

Meanwhile, the company has revealed revenues of €1.35 billion for the first nine months of 2015 – a decrease of €85.7 million from the same period last year.

The company’s profit of €18.4 million for the first nine months is almost half the amount on last year’s equivalent report, which was €36.2 million.

Lemminkäinen said the total volume of construction in Finland has declined year-on-year, but it expects it to increase slightly in 2016.

Lindholm, said, “Our operating capital has decreased from €630 million to €485 million during the last 12 months. We have reduced investments and decreased our net working capital by improving invoicing efficiency, divesting non-strategic plots and assets and by maintaining a good level of housing sales in Russia.

“The streamlining of our portfolio has had a negative impact of more than €20 million on our 2015 result, which is more than we originally estimated. However, these measures are in line with our strategy and they will improve our competitiveness over the long term and enable us to focus on our core businesses. Overall we are proceeding as planned.”