ESSEN (dpa-AFX) - The construction group Hochtief has once again increased its profit last year and announced the prospect of further growth. In addition to infrastructure projects, the company also expects a tailwind from the construction of data centers. Tech companies are investing a lot of money in the expansion of computing power due to growing data volumes and the AI trend. The dividend is set to rise by 40 cents to 4.40 euros per share. The Spanish construction group ACS, which owns a good three quarters of the shares, is benefiting from this in particular. Hochtief shares rose by more than four percent in afternoon trading on Thursday.

Adjusted for one-off effects, net profit for 2023 amounted to a good 553 million euros, up 6.1 percent on the previous year, as the company announced in Essen on Thursday. Analysts had expected slightly less on average. "We see enormous opportunities for the Group and are very well positioned to exploit them," said CEO Juan Santamaría Cases, who is also the CEO of ACS. The Group is achieving strong growth both in its traditional core activities and in several high-tech infrastructure markets. Hochtief is also winning projects in areas such as the energy transition, new mobility and digitalization.

One of the growth markets is digital infrastructure. "The construction of data centers is increasing rapidly here," he said. The US subsidiary Turner 2023 alone has received orders for a number of new buildings in the USA worth USD 2.8 billion (around EUR 2.6 billion). At the beginning of the current year, Turner was awarded a contract by internet group Meta to build a data center worth USD 800 million in the US state of Indiana.

According to Santamaría, the Australian Hochtief subsidiary Cimic also won several contracts to build data centers: in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Malaysia. In Europe, Hochtief has been awarded the contract for a project in Warsaw and has begun construction of a sustainable data center in Germany.

According to the information provided, Hochtief expects an increase in adjusted net profit to between 560 and 610 million euros in the current year thanks to a good order backlog.

Including special effects, Hochtief reported a profit of 522.7 million euros in 2023. This is 8.5 percent more than a year earlier. The Abertis investment - a Spanish infrastructure company - contributed almost 80 million euros, almost a fifth more than in the previous year.

Hochtief's order intake increased by a good fifth to just under 36.7 billion euros. The order backlog amounted to a good 55 billion euros at the end of December. "Around 50 percent of new orders in 2023 will come from fast-growing high-tech markets such as the energy transition, new mobility and digitalization," said CEO Santamaría Cases.

With their cooperative or service nature, these projects would also help to reduce the risk for the company. Lower-risk contracts now account for around 85 percent of the order backlog. Six years ago, this figure was still around 65 percent.

Annual turnover climbed by 5.9 percent to just under 27.8 billion euros. Adjusted for currency effects, the increase amounted to ten percent. All three regions contributed to this growth. Hochtief generates 97 percent of its revenues outside Germany.

Founded in 1873, the company employed just under 41,600 people worldwide at the end of 2023, including more than 3,200 in Germany. There were 1800 in North Rhine-Westphalia alone. The Group headquarters are in Essen.

Hochtief and its subsidiaries are primarily active in Australia, North America and Europe. Well-known Hochtief construction projects in Europe include the Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg and the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland. Hochtief is also building the new A1 Rhine Bridge in Leverkusen /mne/tob/mis/he