Strabag’s Romanian business could increase 10% in 2009

The group posted turnover worth €273 million in 2008, over 50 percent more year-on-year, when turnover amounted to €191 mln, said Diana Klein, representative of the group’s Investor Relations Department, quoted by Mediafax. Christian Ebner, head of the Austrian group’s Department for Communication and Investor Relations, declared last September that Strabag posted consolidated revenue worth €200 million in 2007, and that it expects a 50 percent increase in 2008, to €300 mln. At that time, Strabag announced that it intended to invest €220 million in the construction of a cement factory in Anina, in western Caras Severin County. According to the Strabag official, the project is momentarily on hold, due to the drop in the price of cement.  At the end of October 2008, Ebner said that Strabag estimates that the current financial crisis will not affect the markets of Central and Eastern Europe in 2008, that this will have a reduced impact in 2009, and could generate a drop in the group’s growth rate in 2010, including its Romanian operations, from double digits to some 3 percent.  

The group controls companies in Romania such as ARL Cluj, Carb Brasov, Drumco Timisoara and Strabag Romania. Strabag is interested in the construction by concession of a section of the Comarnic-Brasov Highway, for which it submitted a bid to the Ministry of Transporation, in consortia with Egis Projects (France), Eurovia Construct International (Romania) and Housing&Construction Holding (Israel).