Welcome once again, and thank you for joining this Per Aarsleff Holding Q2 conference call. With me today, I have Group CEO Jesper Jacobsen and Group CFO Mogens Hestbæk. After the presentation, we will continue to the Q&A session, where all speakers will be available for questions. Today, the Q&A session will be conducted by phone. For questions, please dial one of the listed phone numbers and enter the provided conference code. The conference call will be recorded and listed on aarsleff.com. The call is scheduled to last 45 minutes. Please note that the call is specifically for analysts and investors. The content of the conference call must not be quoted and reproduced in the media. Please be aware that the presentation contains forward-looking statements subject to uncertainties, and over to you, Jesper.
Thank you, and welcome everybody to this presentation of our first half year in 2024-2025 annual accounts. The overall figures: turnover of DKK 10.8 billion , a growth of 3% compared to the same period last year. As you can see on the donuts, roughly still a third of our turnover is outside Denmark, an EBIT of 465, 4.3% percentage-wise, the same as last year, but an increase in absolute figures, then we go to construction. The picture is from our concrete prefab facilities in Świnoujście in Poland, where we have invested in a new tower crane, one of the biggest in the world. We do believe that only two or three of the same size in the world tower crane that can lift roughly 300 tons.
Construction segment turnover revenue of DKK 5 billion, an EBIT result of 259, an increase compared to the same period last year, and percentage-wise the same level as last year. And turnover-wise, revenue-wise, an increase of roughly 1% compared to the same period last year. The segment comments and the market outlook exceed our expectations and have a satisfying EBIT margin. The market is still on a high level, especially with civil engineering projects in Denmark and the North Atlantic region. The building market, the classical building market, is still on a relatively low level, but we still, as we see, high activity and a high demand in infrastructure, energy, and renovation projects. ArtiCon is part of our figures now from 1st of April.
As I said, classical building market is still on a relatively low level, but the projects that we have in the order books are going according to plan, the two projects in Aarhus and also the Copenhagen Terminal 3 airport expansion. The picture you can see on the left-hand side of the slide is actually a picture from ArtiCon tunnel projects. ArtiCon has recently completed two tunnel projects, tunnels that are used for storage and cooling of primarily fish, two tunnels roughly 900 meters long, and area-wise 12,000 and 15,000 square meters of tunnels. The rock material that we have removed has been used for expanding a harbor in Tórshavn, a typical tunnel project in the Faroe Islands. To technical solutions, the picture is from one of our district heating projects in Copenhagen, Vestforbrænding. Turnover of 1 point.
Almost DKK 9 billion, an increase of 18% compared to the same period last year. EBIT result DKK 68 million, 3.7%, an increase both in total figures and percentage-wise compared to the same period last year. Yeah, revenue growth 18% and a satisfying EBIT margin. Also here, we see high market activity, a strong demand on infrastructure projects, district heating, the pharmaceutical sector, especially Novo, still on a high level, high demands. And then district heating, energy transition projects as projects driven by the green transition, energy transition, district heating is also still on a high level. The picture you can see is from one of the hospitals that we are active on at the moment. That's Mary Elizabeth Hospital in Copenhagen, and we are also active in the hospital in Hillerød. And that's also two projects where we have high activity at the moment.
Our DSB maintenance agreement, Hard FM as we call it, executed between Wicotec Kirkebjerg and rail, has been extended for two years. So that's also a positive trend. Starting with the picture, that's from the light rail in Copenhagen, a night or evening picture where we can see the green trains standing ready. Revenue almost DKK 1 billion in rail, a decrease compared to the same period last year of 6%. EBIT result, segment result of DKK 30 million and 3.1%, an increase in both figures compared to the same period last year. Yeah, results in line with our expectations and actually a relatively solid margin. Strong demand in Denmark. We have talked about that the last time we also spoke, and we still see a strong market in Denmark, to a lesser extent in Norway and Sweden, but still Denmark is really a strong market, attractive market.
Yeah, strategic focus to increase our service and maintenance activities. Hard FM is, as I just mentioned before, one of them. Continued high activity on the major projects, the light rail in Copenhagen, which is still on a high activity level, electrification projects. Reconstruction of Aarhus Central Station. That's one of the projects that we were awarded earlier this year. The picture you can see on the left-hand side is New Kastrup Station, also newly awarded projects that rail has got. DKK 300 million in size and the same size of the project in Aarhus Central Station. So again, high demand and high activity, especially the Danish market in rail. Ground engineering has had a challenging first half year. We had the same situation when we talked about Q1. That situation has continued into Q2.
A decrease in revenue of roughly 5%, landing at DKK 1.6 billion in the first half year. And a negative EBIT result, DKK 9 billion negative, minus 1.6%. So we can also see the continued challenging conditions that we have in ground engineering. The picture you can see on the left-hand side is from a parking house that we have built the cofferdam to in our Aarhus harbor next to the high-rise office building Mindet that we are constructing at the moment. Yeah, below expectations, decreased demand in especially concrete piles. We can see that both in Denmark and in Sweden continuing and resulting in lower capacity utilization of our factories and the driving equipment on the sites. We can also still see that some projects are being postponed. We also saw that in Q1, and that has continued into Q2.
So yeah, still the same situation as we saw in Q1, but when we look forward in the second half year, we see better market conditions. So we expect that to be better in the second half year. Decline in classical building projects, residential construction, especially in Denmark, in Sweden is still the picture we see out there. As I said, market outlook is improving also in Denmark and Sweden. And there's quite many projects in the tender phase and in the pipeline. So we see more positive on the market going forward. And in the Nordic market, we actually see quite solid activity. The bigger projects, Masthuggskajen in Gothenburg, is progressing as planned. And the picture you can see on the left-hand side is our screw pile. We have talked about that earlier.
We have installed screw piles on an extension of an office building in Aarhus harbor, and that's where the picture is from. You can see the Molslinjen ferry lying in the background of the picture, then to pipe technologies, a picture from Norway where we have invested in a truck driven by biogas instead of diesel. One of our initiatives in becoming more sustainable in our fleet of equipment and machinery. Pipe technologies have, contrary to ground engineering, had a very positive first half year and increase in turnover of roughly 10%, landing at around DKK 1.3 billion, segment result of DKK 117 million, 9.2%. The DKK 117 million is all-time highest as we can remember it, so a very good first half year in pipe technologies.
Yeah, revenue growth of 10%, EBIT margin 9.2%, and it's driven by high activity levels in all the markets we're in, resulting in high capacity utilization, and that's basically what gives the very good EBIT result. Yeah, new line technology is continuing as expected, and we have, as we also have talked about earlier, focus on new markets. Again, a sustainability picture. The picture you saw before was from Norway, a truck driven by biogas, and this is a truck in Denmark that we invested in, driven by electricity batteries, as we also know from some private cars. So we are continuing to invest in more and more sustainable equipment, and the fleet we have is becoming more and more sustainable. Order backlog, order intake. If we start with order backlog, just above DKK 25 billion, also all-time high.
In those DKK 25.2 billion, roughly DKK 700 million is coming from ArtiCon, from the Faroe Islands, as we reported earlier on the construction segment, and the order intake, just above DKK 11 billion in total, and as you can see on the graph on the right-hand side, quite good in almost all segments, and in total, a little bit more than DKK 11 billion intake, and then guidance for the full year. We raised the guidance exactly two weeks ago, where we now expect a revenue growth of 2%-6%, resulting in a revenue expectation of between DKK 22 billion and DKK 23 billion, and an EBIT result between DKK 1.1 billion and DKK 1.2 billion, and margin-wise around the 5% that we also guided earlier. That was the presentation, and then we can go on to questions and answers. Thank you.
If you do wish to ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing five star again. We will have a brief pause while questions are being registered. First up, we have Sebastian Grave from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Good morning, Jesper, and Mogens, and thank you for taking my questions. I have a few. I'll just go ahead one by one. The first question is on the construction segment. You deliver around 6% EBIT margin here in a smaller seasonal quarter. So I guess you're pretty satisfied with that. But just trying to understand, what should we read into this number? Is there any sort of one-off effect from new signs of recognizing earnings on bigger projects, or is this purely underlying backlog improvements?
It's a result of, as we said, good market conditions, good execution of the majority of our products. So it's not one or two offs, if you can say so. It's a broad improvement of our execution of especially civil engineering projects.
Okay, and Jesper, you also mentioned ArtiCon now being baked into the guidance. Can you give an indication of how much ArtiCon additions are reflected in the new guidance for this year? I'm just trying to figure out what is the underlying guidance upgrade corrected for ArtiCon additions.
Yes, of course. ArtiCon typically can do a revenue of DKK 6, 7, 800 million per year. They typically have an EBIT margin between 5% and 8%. So in a typical year, they will make between DKK 30 million and DKK 50 million in EBIT margin. So a fair assumption would be DKK 40 million, and then it's a summer half year that's included. On the other hand, we have some depreciation on some of the name, and we allocated to where we allocated goodwill to name, and we allocated some goodwill to the order backlog. So roughly DKK 20 million would be a fair assumption that is included.
Okay. Thank you so much, Mogens. That was very clear. Then my next question is moving on to technical solutions. So a bit conversely of construction, the 3% EBIT margin may be a bit a tad below what at least we've seen in the past quarters. Is there anything changed here short term? And maybe if we zoom out and look more like on the longer horizon here, I mean, given the complexity of the technical solutions business, shouldn't it be doable to drive more than a 4% EBIT margin that is currently reflected in your midterm guidance?
If we take the last question first, yes, it should be possible to earn more. And that's also what our goal is. As I said, it's good market conditions. District heating is on a high activity level, and the hospitals, and then especially Novo, have a lot of products. So nothing has changed. It's still a good market that we see in front of us.
So you can say, yes, in the lower margin in the quarter is more how the mix was here. It's nothing special. There's nothing we were worried about. So we see generally a good trend there, and there can be variation from quarter- to- quarter.
It's a product business that we are operating. Yeah.
Sure. Sure. No, I understand that. Thank you. And I just have a last question. This is on the ground engineering segment. So two soft quarters in a row, you're more optimistic on the outlook, at least reflected. That's what reflected in your guidance. How much visibility do you have at this point? And just to understand, is there any sort of earnings realization of the Masthuggskajen baked into the second year or second half guidance?
Our visibility is the same as we, I would say, always have in ground engineering three to almost maximum six months outlook. Masthuggskajen is reported as we do on all bigger projects with a certain conservatism. We are not done yet, but it's expected to be completed in this calendar year. I would say not necessarily in this financial year, but in this calendar year.
Okay. Okay. Sure. No, thank you so much for taking my questions, guys.
You're welcome.
Next up, we have Anders Preetzmann from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Yes, hello. Jesper, Mogens, and thank you also for taking my questions. I also have a few, maybe just two to begin with the ground engineering segment again and the guidance. And for H2, your full year guidance implies that you expect an increase in revenue of 20% compared to the first half of the year. Yet you expect quite a substantial margin increase going from a negative 1% in H1 to a positive 7% in H2. And I know you did something similar last year, and I know that you mentioned higher capacity utilization as a reason here, but can you please maybe elaborate a little further on your thoughts on the guidance for ground engineering? And maybe what could go wrong for the remainder of the year for you not to reach the guidance bottom end?
As we mentioned, we do still see a low demand in concrete piles, especially in Denmark and Sweden. And we have also seen the tendency that projects are being postponed. That's not only in Denmark and Sweden, but with the pipeline we see going forward, we believe that that will be improved. But as we said in Q1, there's still some uncertainty. I think we need to say that in ground engineering that that's where the uncertainty is biggest compared to the other segments. We strongly believe that it will improve, but if the tendency with the postponed projects will continue, then it might look different. But that's not what we see right now. If you have anything to add, Mogens?
Yeah, no. It's the same if we have seen some signed contracts that have been postponed, and if that happens to one of the major ones we already signed that is supposed to start up here in the second half, then there is a risk of not meeting this. But we are more optimistic, as you can see with the guidance and what we see out in the market.
We can see also bigger projects in the pipeline that might materialize in the second half year.
Yeah, that will start very quickly.
Very quickly. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you very much. My next question is actually the same, but just for pipe technologies. You deliver a margin of 11% in Q1. This goes down to 7% in Q2. And for H2, you also expect a margin of 7%. Maybe these are two questions, actually. What were the factors driving the 11% margin in Q1, and what would need to happen for you to deliver such a number again for H2?
Yeah. As we said, it's really good and attractive market conditions, high activities in all markets we are in. And it's like the factories and ground engineering pipe technologies is, to a certain extent, a volume gain. It's more an industry than the other segments. And that can really be seen on the bottom figure if you have high activity.
As I say, especially Q1, that's the end of the financial year for all our clients. This is projects that can start up very easily if they have money they have not spent. That's why we often see good result in our Q1, because it's our clients' last chance to spend their budgets.
Especially the public clients.
All our public clients. That's it.
Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you very much. Another question on the you mentioned a strong cash flow here for the quarter due to, among other things, positive working capital effects. Just a question on where should we see this going forward? Is there anything of significance on the cash trading side for the coming quarters? Where should we see the cash?
Based on experience and past performance, we always see an improvement in the first two quarters, and then we spent some in the last two quarters. We have had a very, very positive cash flow the first half year also, better than we had expected. We will consume some of it in the second half, but we don't expect major movements. I would say some of it will go a bit up, but not a major movement. But as we talked about before, it's really also we have some quite large projects, and it also depends on how they decide to optimize their working capital. So that's what we've seen in the past that we've been surprised about some of our clients, how they optimize their own cash flow. So that's uncertainty because it's a huge figure. You cannot do anything about it. It's either you have the cash or not.
Thank you, Mogens. My last question is on Germany. I know it's still early days, but what are you currently seeing in Germany in case of future demand? I mean, I suppose we're looking into quite a significant pickup in demand sometime in the future. What are you seeing currently?
We do see a rise in demand, especially in ground engineering. Again, products driven by energy transition, green transition is coming, starting to ramp up. Yeah, we clearly see that picture. Yeah.
Okay. So does this mean it's something for this calendar year, or is it expected for next year?
No, it's too early for this calendar, but we see the first activity that seems to come out from this German package. So it's too early for this calendar year. It could be some pipe technology projects, but the ground engineering projects are part of some large scale projects, and it takes time to get them on the way.
Experience shows that both in Denmark and also outside Denmark, many of these energy-driven projects also sometimes. It's a bit bumpy ride. How fast it will actually go, it's difficult to tell exactly right now.
But yes, our German organizations are much more positive now than they were half a year ago. So it's definitely a positive thing for us. And we also could potentially see some in pipe technologies. And maybe also some shared product with our construction segment that we're looking into now.
So the market's going up.
Thank you very much. Yeah. That is great to hear. Thank you very much, Jesper, Mogens. That was all from me. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press five-star on your telephone keypad. As there are no further questions at this moment, I will hand it back to Jesper for any closing remarks.
Thank you. We had hoped for more questions, but that's fine. We have answered the ones that are. Thank you for listening. Thank you for the interest in our company and have a great day. Thank you.
Welcome once again, and thank you for joining this Per Aarsleff Holding Q2 conference call. With me today, I have Group CEO Jesper Jacobsen and Group CFO Mogens . After the presentation, we will continue to the Q&A session where all speakers will be available for questions. Today, the Q&A session will be conducted by phone. For questions, please dial one of the listed phone numbers and enter the provided conference code. The conference call will be recorded and listed on aarsleff.com. The call is scheduled to last 45 minutes. Please note that the call is specifically for analysts and investors. The content of the conference call must not be quoted and reproduced in the media. Please be aware that the presentation contains forward-looking statements subject to uncertainties, and over to you, Jesper.
Thank you. And welcome everybody to this presentation of our first half year in 2024-25 annual accounts. The overall figures turnover of DKK 10.8 billion, a growth of 3% compared to the same period last year. And as you can see on the donuts, roughly still a third of our turnover is outside Denmark. An EBIT of 465, 4.3% percentage-wise, the same as last year, but an increase in absolute figures.