Interest in construction giant Aarsleff’s shares keeps building

Company’s financial results and news of successful bids pushing stock price up

Jun 9, 2015

Largely due to winning a number of lucrative public contracts, the construction giant Per Aarsleff is witnessing a sharp rise in its share price, Børsen reports. The company’s publicly traded share price has rocketed in price by 430 percent since 2013 and 118 percent in the past half-year.

But Ebbe Malte Iversen, the head of Aarsleff, is understated in his appraisal of the share’s recent performance. “We can see indirectly that there’s been more interest in the stock in terms of it producing positive publicity and attention for the company,” he said.

Upward adjustment
Last week, the company made an upward adjustment to its expected result for 2015 following the reporting of a particularly successful half-year. Aarsleff now expects to make 390 million kroner before tax in its 2014/2015 financial year.

On the same day the company announced that its consortium with Siemens had entered into a 2.8-billion-kroner contract with the railway operator Banedanmark to electrify 1,300 kilometres of the rail network.

Aarsleff could also stand to gain from a recent decision by the American Court of Federal Appeals, which prevents the US company Exelis Services from taking on the lucrative contract to run the Thule Air Base in Greenland. Since Aarsleff made the next-cheapest bid for the job, the contract could fall to the Danes.

The construction company is also eyeing contracts for the Fehmarn Belt tunnel and a number of other upcoming public tenders.

Kristian Tornøe Johansen, a senior analyst at Danske Bank Markets, is optimistic about Aarsleff’s outlook and said that the industry had become healthier since the collapse of its competitor Pihl & Søns.

“We are seeing better margins and more rational conduct across the board when price is determined for a tender. Therefore Aarsleff should be able to retain good margins in the future.”