Despite a good solid operational performance HOCHTIEF was not able to completely compensate the losses from Leighton. The result of the Australian subsidiary was affected throughout the last year by two major projects and by further extraordinary effects. After this has been dealt with in 2011 HOCHTIEF has a sound operational basis for 2012: The divisions of the HOCHTIEF Group have performed well. New orders in the fourth quarter were very strong with a total of approximately EUR 9 billion.
However, HOCHTIEF had additional extraordinary effects in the fourth quarter including negative impacts on earnings at Leighton and expenses for former HOCHTIEF Executive Board members. On January 16, 2012, Leighton reported impairments to its investment in its subsidiary in Dubai and the operator company BrisConnections. The negative impact on profit before taxes amounted to approximately AUD 120 million or approximately EUR 89 million. Furthermore, the total amount of expenses incurred due to special termination rights exercised by former Executive Board members as a result of the change of control increased by around EUR 19 million to roughly EUR 35 million in Q4 2011.
HOCHTIEF now anticipates a pretax loss of approximately EUR 130 million for the full year 2011 (previously guided: loss in the low double-digit million euro range) and a consolidated net loss of around EUR 160 million (previously guided: approximate negative of EUR 100 million).
HOCHTIEF thus completes a year in which the Group has handled many changes and burdens of the past. This is reflected in the financial statements. At the same time, HOCHTIEF has proven its excellent market position by a very high volume of new orders in the fourth quarter. As a result, the order backlog at year-end has increased to approximately EUR 48 billion. This gives HOCHTIEF comfort and the company therefore confirms the guidance for 2012: The Group continues to expect an operative profit that will be slightly below the previous record year 2010.
The operational performance of HOCHTIEF’s divisions over the last months of 2011 was good: The Americas and Europe divisions closed fiscal 2011 with higher profit before taxes than in 2010. Asia Pacific was impacted by the above mentioned extraordinary effects. However, on January 16, 2012, the Australian subsidiary Leighton reported an increase in operating profit after taxes from the recent guidance of AUD 250 million to roughly AUD 270 million for the past six months. As already envisaged the profit before taxes of the HOCHTIEF Concessions division was dominated by extraordinary effects in the form of value adjustments for toll road projects in Greece and Chile (combined total amount booked in Q4 2011 approximately EUR 90 million).