Porr improves its financial results

Austrian-based contractor Porr has recorded a year-on-year rise in profits, as it releases its six-month financial results.

According to its half-year figures, margins increased to €2.9 million, from €0.07 million for the same period in 2013.

The company said its improved performance was down to a renewed focus on core markets in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Poland and the Czech Republic.

Other factors in its upturn included making an early start to the construction season and settled weather conditions that helped completion of a number of its projects.

Infrastructure schemes, including the Green Line of the Doha Metro, the major Koralm KAT3 Austrian railway tunnel scheme, slab track rail projects in Germany and a buoyant Vienna housing market also helped boost its performance.

Porr’s production output rose 23% as it decreased its debt levels from €402 million in 2013 to €261 million.

It has also announced the intention to spin-off its real-estate business, Strauss and Partner, as a separate listed company. The firm has said this will help it maintain focus on its construction business.

Chief executive, Karl-Heinz Strauss, welcomed its positive results. He said, “We are consistently pursuing the course laid out for Porr. “Buoyed by the current market situation, we will take a targeted approach to continuing and realising our focal points in cost management, process optimisation and the shift towards digital technology in construction”.