Per Aarsleff Holding A/S Class B

Per Aarsleff Holding A/S Class B

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Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptMay 28, 2026

Operator

Welcome and thank you for joining this Per Aarsleff Holding Q2 conference call. With me today, I have CEO Jesper Kristian Jacobsen and Group CFO Mogens Vedel Hestbæk.

After the presentation, we will continue to the Q&A session, where all speakers will be available for questions. Today's Q&A session will be conducted by phone.

For questions, please dial the listed numbers and enter the provided conference code. The call details will also be disclosed on the final Q&A slide.

The conference call will be recorded and published on aarsleff.com. This call is scheduled to last 45 minutes.

Please be aware that the presentation contains forward-looking statements subject to uncertainties. Over to you, Jesper.

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

Thank you. On behalf of Mogens and myself, welcome to all of you to this half-year presentation for the financial year 2025/2026.

Overall figures, turnover 12.2 billion Danish kroner, a growth of approximately 14% compared to the same period last year. An EBIT of exactly 500 million Danish kroner, half a billion compared to 4.1%.

An absolute amount, an increase compared to last year, and percentage-wise a small decline, but at the same level, as we would say, compared to the same period last year. A first half-year with expected turnover and expected EBIT margin.

Construction segment, the biggest segment out of the five segments. The picture you can see on the left-hand side is from a fish farm on land in Iceland, a project that Ístak is executing at the moment.

Revenue or turnover, 5.7 billion Danish kroner, a growth of approximately 14% compared to the same period last year, and a segment result, EBIT result of 208 million compared to 3.7%, a little bit less compared to the same period last year. We do see high activity within the construction markets, especially in the civil engineering market, projects driven by large infrastructure projects and also district heating, the green transition markets.

Also, we see a growing interest in defense projects, securing critical infrastructure, and we have already got the first contracts within both areas. The classical building market is still, as expected, on a relatively low level, probably driven by the geopolitical situation and the interest rates.

On the other hand, building renovation projects, especially in Greater Copenhagen, we see a large amount of pipeline projects within that area. The three major ongoing building projects we have at the moment, the two projects, Møllekrogen and Minet in Aarhus, and the extension of Terminal 3 in Copenhagen, is all three progressing as planned.

North Atlantic region seen as an overall area, we do experience good market conditions and also a high activity level. Then we just note that at the very end that the acquisition of CG Jensen and Adsbøll & Knudsen has been approved by the competition authorities Friday last week, so that's now a done deal.

The picture you can see on the left-hand side is the placement of the first element on the Fehmarnbelt project, an element that was placed 6th of May, exactly 3 weeks ago. Now the first element is in place, and within relatively short time, we do expect the next element to be placed on the gravel bed on the seabed.

Technical Solutions, revenue of roughly 2.1 billion Danish kroner, a growth of roughly 12% compared to the same period last year, and an EBIT result of 114 million, 5.4%. Here, an increase both in absolute amount and percentage-wise compared to the same period last year.

A satisfactory both turnover and also EBIT margin of 5.4%. Also here, as in the Construction segment, we do experience high activity level, especially within conversion from natural gas to district heating.

We have several contracts between Wicotec Kirkebjerg and the Construction segment, both in Greater Copenhagen, but also in other areas in Denmark within that field. We do, in generally, experience high activity level within projects for the public sector, also the pharmaceutical sector, and utility companies.

Projects driven by the pharmaceutical sector and also the green transition is still on a relatively high level. Although that we expect market opportunities, especially within the pharmaceutical industry, to be more normalized going forward.

Many tender opportunities within large-scale technical contracts, especially in Greater Copenhagen. Also here, we do experience still high activity level and also relatively good market conditions.

Then on to Rail, the picture is from the opening of Ny Kastrup Station close to Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen. Revenue of roughly 1 billion Danish kroner, a growth of roughly 7% compared to the same period last year, and an EBIT result of 19 million and an EBIT margin of 1.9%, a bit lower than last year.

That's only a result of seasonal variations that we were better last year to get the activities evened out, to say, over the four seasons in a year. This year, we do have high activity within the spring and summer periods.

Here, we do still experience high activity level in Denmark, especially in Denmark, with many tender opportunities. We are still, especially in Denmark, very selective in going for the right tenders.

Especially in Copenhagen and in Aarhus, the rebuild of Aarhus Central Station, we do see high activity and also within other areas in Denmark. Then in Norway and Sweden, on the other hand, especially Norway, we are still progressing in the turnaround we have had over the last 1 to 2 years.

We are better advanced or far advanced in Sweden than we are in Norway. In both countries, we also do still see good tender opportunities, good market conditions.

Due to the challenges that we have been through in the last 1 to 2 years, we are even more selective than we are in Denmark trying to secure that we do not get too high activity, that we do get it in the right steps. In all three countries, and especially Denmark, we do see good tender and market opportunities.

Then on to Ground Engineering, the picture is from Vejle in Denmark, where we are executing geotechnical investigations for a future harbor project within Vejle Harbor. As we have been talking about the last 1 to 1.5 years, the market conditions for Ground Engineering has been challenging in more markets that we are in.

That is still the case, although that we do see better market conditions in some countries now, especially in the UK, Poland, and in Sweden. We do see an increase in the activities and then in Denmark and especially Norway and Germany, it's still a more bumpy road, you could say.

The market is improving in more countries. A turnover of roughly 2 billion Danish kroner, an increase, a growth of 17% compared to the same period last year, and an EBIT result of 31 million Danish kroner, 1.6%.

Still on a relatively low level, but as you can see, an improvement of last year's results. The market conditions are getting better, and especially in Poland, UK, and Sweden, we do see the increase in activity level.

As an overall challenge, we do still see a relatively low demand for these precast concrete piles, resulting in a lower capacity utilization, especially in Denmark and Germany. Then we do see better conditions in UK, Poland, and in Sweden.

The project you see on the left-hand side is a picture from the so-called London Gateway project, a harbor project east of London, where huge logistic centers are being built. This is one of the logistics centers for DP World, a logistic worldwide logistic company, where we are driving precast piles, 225,000 linear meters, more than 11,000 pieces of piles.

When we peaked over there, we had nine rigs, nine piling rigs, as you can see on the picture, operating at the same time, and had more than 60 60 people employed on the project. We do still see in some countries delay of projects, postponement of projects, also to some extent being canceled.

As the overall picture is that the market conditions are getting better in most countries. Pipe Technologies, the picture is from a pipe rehabilitation in Bergen in Norway on a ship in a shipyard.

Revenue of 1.5 billion Danish kroner, an increase also here of 17% compared to the same period last year, and an EBIT result of 128 million, 8.6%. A good first half-year in result in Pipe Technologies, and as we also state here, EBIT-wise slightly higher than expected.

Contrary to Ground Engineering, all major markets we are in Pipe Technologies are good market conditions. That was the same picture we saw when we ended Q1.

That is continuing, high activity level, so that's basically what drives both the turnover and the good results. Here we have high capacity utilization of both the factories and the installation units out in the fields, where we in Ground Engineering experience lower capacity utilization.

Then the rising oil prices, we do see an effect here, especially in the production cost of and installation of liners. Strong activity on all major significant markets.

Then we just note that at the very end, the acquisition of the Canadian company Liqui-Force Services that we also talked about at Q1 presentation. Order backlog is a bit more roughly 26.5 billion Danish kroner, roughly at the same level as we had 1st of October last year.

If we look at the order intake, not for Q2, but for the full first half-year, it's on 12.3 billion Danish kroner and at a satisfactory level seen as an overall order intake, although that in Q2 alone, it has been a bit lower than we had in Q1. Q1 and Q2 seen together is at a satisfactory level.

Guidance for the full year has been raised as a result of the approval of the acquisition of CG Jensen and Adsbøll & Knudsen. Now we expect 12% to 15% growth compared to earlier 6% to 11%, between 25.4 and 26.1 billion Danish kroner in turnover.

Then we have narrowed in the EBIT margin band to 5.0% to 5.3% when we earlier had 5.0% to 5.5%. That was a quick presentation, and then we turn over to dialogue and questions and answers.

Operator

If you wish to ask a question, please press 5 * on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing 5 * again.

The first question we have is from the line of Kristian Tornøe from SEB. Please go ahead, your line will now be unmuted.

Kristian Tornøe

Yes, thank you. I have a couple of questions, I'll just take them one by one.

First one is on the financials. Your depreciations, amortization, and impairments are up 29% year on year in Q2 and 20% in the first half.

Can you elaborate what's driving the increase, and in particular, if there are any impairments or one-offs in this?

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

There's no one-off, Kristian, but you can say, for example, Articon was acquired in around, I think it was 1st of April last year, was approved. We have that depreciation on the order backlog in Articon is now included, and was not.

That's I think that's a major one nominal-wise compared to the same period last year. If you talk about financials, we have had a quite nice amount on our bank account, and now we will spend quite a bit of that within the next 10 days, you will not see the same amount of financial income as we have had in the first half in the second half.

Kristian Tornøe

If I look at the Q2 numbers, your depreciations, amortizations are 279 million. Is that then the run rate I should put in, and then adding the purchase price amortizations on the two

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

acquisitions on top? You could say we have increased our investments over the last year, of course it is increasing quarter by quarter when we increase our general level of investments.

Then you will typically see when we acquire a company like Articon, a company like CG Jensen, Adsbøll, basically we're saying we are acquiring an existing order backlog with an income, and we're depreciating that over the expected execution period. For construction companies, that will typical be 12 to 18 months.

Then when we have had the ownership of Articon and CG Jensen, Adsbøll & Knudsen, you will see a drop after 12 to 18 months depending on what type of projects you have in the backlog.

Kristian Tornøe

Okay. Any indication of where we should expect depreciations and amortizations for the full year?

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

Basically, you can say that Articon will still continue for this full financial years, and then you will see when we start consolidating CG Jensen, Adsbøll & Knudsen by 1st of June, you will have 4 months of depreciation. Yes, there will be an increase the last 4 months.

We do not expect a significant increase in our Q3, but in our Q4 there will be an effect for that. You can say you have seen the historical figures for CG Jensen, Adsbøll & Knudsen.

You can say we include 4 months, and you can say we are saying that there's very limited EBIT effects, then you can do your rough math. Of course, we have done some small acquisition like Styrud and Bøglund, they will also contribute to increase, but the major one will be Adsbøll & Knudsen and CG Jensen.

Kristian Tornøe

Fair enough. Then moving on, but staying on the topic of CG Jensen and Adsbøll & Knudsen, as you just pointed out, you're not expecting any meaningful EBIT contribution for this year.

Can you talk a bit about your ambitions for the coming years? Obviously, I don't expect you to not expect any earnings contribution, but when should we expect these companies to contribute meaningfully to your EBIT line?

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

Basically, our initial plan is probably to depreciate the existing order backlog over 18 months, as typically we do. You can say the coming 18 months will definitely draw down the EBIT percentage, but of course they are constantly also getting new projects in.

The dilution will be decreasing over the first 18 months. I don't know, do you have any more to add about the plans?

No,

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

I think that's fair to say, as Mogens is saying, that the 18 months is basically the remaining part of this year and then the full next year.

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

Yeah.

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

Right.

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

Diluting as more projects will come in. Yeah.

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

Yeah.

Kristian Tornøe

We shouldn't expect any larger contribution next financial year, that's what you're saying.

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

Correct. No, that's what we're saying, Kristian.

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

Correct. That's to make it more precise.

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

Yeah.

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

Fantastic. Then

Kristian Tornøe

the last one from me just on the margin guidance for your Construction segment. In the first half, you're at 3.7% EBIT margin.

If we take your guidance, it implies round numbers sort of more in the 5% to 6% level. Can you just talk through the drivers which should lift your margin for construction in the second half?

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

We have some projects where we are getting closer to the finish line. There's a major one over in Copenhagen.

It's basically the phasing on the projects where we have some quite significant projects that are getting closer to be finished, and financially they are doing well. You'll see an expected uplift in the contribution from them.

Conservative in taking earnings in as we always do on these bigger projects, Christian. That's

Kristian Tornøe

very clear. Excellent.

That was all for me. Thank you.

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Sebastian Grave from Nordea. Please go ahead, your line will now be unmuted.

Sebastian Grave

Hi, Jesper and Mogens, thank you for taking my questions as well. I would like to start out on the CG Jensen and Adsbøll acquisitions and sort of want to try to get a bit better sense of the P&L impact this year.

It appears that you get quite some impact on the revenue line and then you say limited effects on profitability. Now, this is the key driver behind the guidance revision, maybe we could get a bit more specific here on especially on the EBIT contribution this year.

What are we talking here? Is it 10 million, 20, 30 million?

Any color here would be much appreciated.

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

Closer to the first figure than the last figure.

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

The last figure.

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

Have to be, yeah. Depreciation of

Sebastian Grave

Yeah. Okay.

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

That was some kind of color Sebastian.

Sebastian Grave

No, I'll take it. It's better than nothing, I'll take it.

Okay. I hear you say 10, maybe 15.

That's good. Then second question and back to something moving guidance here and where I guess you haven't been very specific.

Energy prices, could we try to quantify the H2 impact as well here? As obviously, I know it's a complex picture and I fully understand, but I guess we should be able to boil it down to a number that you have baked into your guidance here for H2.

Net-net, what is sort of the energy price headwind that you have baked in to the guidance here for H2?

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

You mean fuel prices?

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

Fuel. Energy,

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

fuel. Fuel, yeah.

We can try to provide a color here, then we can see if it's the color that you expect, Sebastian. I think it's correct that oil prices has gone up.

I think we can all see that when we go to the petrol station. We can to some extent push that out to the clients.

We also do have contracts which are indexated in different ways. There's a bit of delay in that indexation on most contracts, but we strongly believe that we'll be compensated to a certain extent.

Then so yes, that will imply increased cost on our books. Then on the other hand, now we're getting new orders in the order backlog.

There we do get the orders on a high fuel price, and there we would probably benefit when it goes down again. Seen on the short run, yes, it implies increased cost, but seen on a longer run, it's probably being more neutral.

That's what we expect.

Sebastian Grave

No,

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

I get that and

Sebastian Grave

it's understandable. I guess what I'm trying to understand is sort of the numbers here.

Trying to quantify the effect here in H2. Is it possible to put a number?

Because, obviously if I look at your guidance, implicit H2 guidance is actually quite decent in terms of margin, and especially if we try to adjust for the M&A dilution as well as the energy price dilution. It's quite sensitive to those assumptions.

I'm trying to get a better understanding on the numbers here, also in terms of energy prices.

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

I think what we're trying to say, Sebastian, it's a very complex calculation

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

that is

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

different from segment to segment. For example, Pipe Technologies is not only the fuel prices for the trucks, it's also the input materials for the factory.

We see a very good market, but that would in time have increased the guidance for Pipe Technologies that are doing better than expected half-year. Here, they are the segment that have the most significant hit by the fuel prices.

When you see the guidance from Pipe Technology, it covers basically it's going very well, better than expected. On the other hand, we can see with the current fuel price level, we will get a hit here on all the frame contracts in Denmark.

Then on we typically have a 3 months order horizon where we've sent out a tender before it's executed, before we get adjusted the prices, we take a 3 months hit. You can say it's a very very complex, because you have something going in a positive direction, and then you have that in a negative direction, and it's different from segment.

You will not get us to give a figure. You will say it's been included in all the segments, and there is different effects.

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

The indexation mechanism we have on the contracts are also quite differently, as it's not the same indexation mechanisms.

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

We have some contracts where it actually benefit from day one,

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

this.

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

We have somewhere it takes time, it's a...

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

It's very complex as Mogens saying, we cannot give you a figure.

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

You see it's...

Sebastian Grave

No, that's fine. Okay.

I had to try at least. No, just my last question, and I will jump and then I will go back to the queue.

As you also addressed, Jesper, the order intake here in the quarter, maybe a bit to the low side. I think it was the lowest level in 13 quarters, obviously following a very strong Q1.

Maybe just to be clear, you guys have talked about the demand picture being strong as ever. Just to confirm, is this still the case?

Or are you seeing any changes to the overall demand picture here following the turmoil in the Middle East?

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

No, the demand or you could say the market opportunities, as I also said when we did the presentation, is [laughs] still huge. It's big.

It's bigger than we have seen for many many years. It goes mostly within the infrastructure area, civil engineering projects.

Some of the what we call megaprojects are coming out now for tender, both in Denmark and in Sweden. We still do see a huge market, huge pipeline of tender opportunities.

The demand is still there. Yeah.

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

You can say especially within the

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

defense,

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

we now start to see the projects coming. We can see that the pipeline is getting more specific.

We see more about specific timing as well. That's the positive.

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

It's still very good market conditions.

Sebastian Grave

Super. Sounds encouraging.

Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Anders Preetzmann from Danske Bank. Please go ahead, your line will now be unmuted.

Anders Preetzmann

Thank you very much. Hello, Jesper and Mogens, and thank you for taking my questions as well.

I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about the quarterly results on the Construction segment. An EBIT margin of 3.5% for the quarter.

We've already talked a bit about this, but maybe just some more words from your side on what is driving this. Is there any weather-related impact in this at all, or is it still just, as you mentioned, larger projects such as the Fehmarnbelt project running at a high cost with no earnings calculated yet that is taking down the margin?

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

It's basically the last part of what you said. Mogens said it earlier on questions.

In the last half-year, we have some huge projects coming to an end where we have been careful taking earnings up, there's a back tail of earnings there. Fehmarn, we have also talked about earlier, that's also being taken in at a conservative level.

You will not hear Mogens and I talk about weather. I think we have said that earlier.

Sometimes it's winter, sometimes it's summer, sometimes it rains, sometimes the sun shines. That's a part of being in the construction business.

I don't think that should be an explanation or an excuse. It's mainly the phasing, I think Mogens said earlier, the phasing of projects that drives a better half-year.

Very

Anders Preetzmann

very understood, thank you. If we may just move on to an update on the Fehmarnbelt project.

Can you just share maybe the current status again and whether we should perhaps expect some news flow from your side in terms of, I don't know, some sort of settlement in the coming months?

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

I think we have said earlier then that specific, you would say, answers and dialogue about the project, I think that we have an agreement with the client that goes via the client. I think it has been announced that we have lowered down the first element, as I also said, the 6th of May, 3 weeks ago.

Within relatively short time, we expect to lower the next elements, and then that submersion train, we could call it, will start, and we will ramp up in the factory. I think also if you follow the media, the client has been out also describing where the project is now and where he is in the dialogue with the contractors.

I think we are in a good place. We have a good dialogue with the client also on these, you could say, outstanding issues that has also been described earlier.

Then the submersion of elements has started here earlier in May, and that will now continue towards the end.

Anders Preetzmann

Thank you very much. A question on the Technical Solutions segment for the quarter.

Very solid performance here, an EBIT margin of 5.7%. Can you just maybe map out for us what is driving this improvement in this segment?

Looking at the implied guidance for H2, at least you don't expect it to continue in an upwards trajectory, yeah, what is driving this good activity in Technical Solutions and why don't you expect it to increase in H2?

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

I think we have done a significant improvement during a very short period of time. I still remember where we had almost zero in EBIT margin in Technical Solutions, I think there's also a limit to how much we can improve.

Of course, we think in Technical Solutions we should earn more, but we are starting to get a level where when we look at in general and also what our competitors have an EBIT margin, there's a limit to what we can have. If you look specifically at what's driving, the pharmaceutical sector, especially one client have had very high activity level.

In our first half, we have quite a significant activity level in the pharmaceutical sector. We also raise a hand and saying that will not continue.

We can see there are projects that this specific client is saying now that they will not continue with the same pace. We have had very high activity level on the hospitals, so that's giving us a significant increase in activity level, and then those projects are doing well.

That's driving it up. We will start to see that will slowly start to fade out, so that's also built in.

The transition from gas to district heating is going on. The second contract we won will not start until end of this financial year, so that will not help us in the second half.

It's both the pharmaceutical, it's a hospital, general good market condition, high revenue that is driving it up. As I said, we use the word normalization.

That's what we expect to see. When we start to see that, you will probably also see more price competition.

Anders Preetzmann

Understood. Thank you very much, Mogens.

A final question from my side, going back to the full-year guidance and the CG Jensen acquisition, just to give us a sense of the underlying activity here, are you maybe able to give us an idea of what the guidance would have been if the CG Jensen acquisition had not been approved faster than expected? Is it fair to assume that about half of the guidance upgrade on top line is due to the CG Jensen approval?

Mogens Vedel Hestbæk

Anders, you can do the math, you can say that you can look at what they had in revenue last year, and then you can do a calculation. Then we can also say that they were at a very high activity level in '25.

There were some very large projects that were executed that year. You can do the math and then deduct a bit, and then you'll have a fairly good answer to your question.

Anders Preetzmann

Thank you very much, Mogens. That was all for me, thank you.

Operator

Let me just remind you, if you have a question, please press 5 * now. Does not appear that we have any more questions, I'll hand back to you, Jesper, for any closing remarks.

Jesper Kristian Jacobsen

Thank you. Thank you for your time, thank you for a good dialogue, thank you for good questions, and thank you for the interest of our company.

We wish you, both Mogens and I, a following good day. Goodbye and have a nice day.