Building on growth
WSE-listed construction capital group Erbud reported zł.8.1 million in net profit for the first quarter of the year, 78.5-percent higher than Q1 2007. The company posted revenues of zł.234.4 million in Q1 - a 67.7-percent rise as compared with the same period a year ago.
The value of the firm's contract portfolio reached zł.818 million, compared with zł.483 million in Q1 2007. Additionally, the firm signed a zł.65-million contract last week for the construction of a commercial center in the town of Kłodzko. That investment is to be completed by the end of February 2009.
Twelve months after its bourse debut in May 2007, Erbud says it has managed to realize the key investment goals which it set at its debut, spending a total of zł.120 million from the IPO - zł.20 million on organic growth and zł.100 million on takeovers.
The firm took over two companies in the first three months of 2008, including a zł.6-million purchase of 75 percent of Rembet Plus, a road-construction company which recorded zł.30 million in revenues last year. Erbud plans to pump another zł.7 million into Rembet Plus to increase its production capacity.
The second takeover comprised the zł.39.5-million purchase of a 98.2-percent stake in another road-construction firm, Przedsiębiorstwo Robót Drogowych (PRD) Toruń whose revenues in 2007 reached zł.63 million and whose contract portfolio in March equalled zł.40 million. PRD Toruń is expected to concentrate on the development of local and national roads throughout the country, hoping to take part in the Euro 80 (zł.273) billion government plan for road investment throughout the 2008-2013 period.
The group also wants to develop Budlex, a regional developer which Erbud acquired last year. Budlex has a 60-percent share in the residential market in the Kujawsko-Pomorskie voivodship and will complete 11-12 residential projects in the region over the next two years.
"[Budlex] will also expand its activity into the industrial and commercial segments," the president of Erbud Dariusz Grzeszczak told WBJ.
