Annual Report

Dear Sir or Madam!

This financial report is the first one that we issue as a joint stock corporation. The change in our legal form, decided and implemented by the owners in 2019 in light of the steady growth, contributes to optimally set up the organizational and legal structures of SWIETELSKY for future challenges. It has no effect on the ownership structure or the composition of the owners and their ownership ratios.

In the financial year 2019/20, SWIETELSKY continued on the successful trajectory of the previous years. In light of the solid economic environment, which was only marred in the last few weeks of the financial year by the coronavirus crisis, the Group was able to continue its organic growth. In its home market of Austria, SWIETELSKY again greatly increased its construction output, while consolidating the strong growth of the past years in all other important markets. Overall, construction output increased by 8% year-onyear. At EUR 3.14 billion, the list of orders is even above last year’s very high level, despite the scheduled completion of large, long-term projects. The equity ratio improved to 30%.

Our main focus has always been on profitability, and in this indicator we also witnessed very satisfying growth. Earnings before taxes (EBT) increased by 7.2%. The EBIT margin of 4.2% is a very good value for the industry. We remain very attentive to the capital structure and place great value on a careful use of our financial resources. Nevertheless, in the past fiscal year we again demonstrated a high willingness to invest in modernising our technical equipment and machines.

The first Group-wide sustainability report, issued in autumn 2019 in accordance with the Sustainability Reporting Standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), shines a light on our performance in the context of sustainable business operations. Through continuous sustainability management, we will continue to generate competitive advantages in this field.

In March 2020, our home market of Austria witnessed a historical situation with the complete stoppage of construction and the interruption of national and international production and supply chains as a consequence of the spread of COVID 19. During this period, our company’s focus was on finding ways to quickly resume our construction activity as safely as possible. We were able to achieve this within a few short weeks. Even though the negative effects of the coronavirus crisis were limited in the end of the financial year 2019/20, the current situation marks a turning point. We expect that the economic effects of the deep recession will be reflected in lower construction output. Our main focus will therefore be on possible efficiency increases in our production processes in order to emerge from the crisis structurally sounder.

It is risky to make predictions for the financial year 2020/21 under the current circumstances; nonetheless, with our robust and profitable business model and our level of orders, which remains high across the Group, we are confident that we will successfully overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences.

One particularly sad event of 2020 was the passing of Ing. Hellmuth Brustmann, who was co-owner and general director of SWIETELSKY for many years. He was one of the pioneers of modern railroad construction, revolutionising efficiency and worker safety by introducing large machines. He was also a driving force behind the internationalisation of SWIETELSKY, helping to make it one of the leading European railroad construction companies. We will fondly remember him as a great visionary with social responsibility.

in July 2020