Construction company BAM achieved a considerably higher gross operating result in the first three months of this year than a year earlier. This was partly due to a windfall in one of his biggest headache files: the IJmuiden sea lock.
While BAM posted a quarterly operating profit of 53.3 million euros a year ago, it was almost double in the past quarter: 97.3 million euros. The country’s largest construction company (17,000 employees) announced this on Thursday.
Of this higher result, 16 million euros will come from the settlement in the Zeesluis project. Builders BAM and VolkerWessels argued for a long time with client Rijkswaterstaat about significant cost overruns in the construction of this largest sea lock in the world. In March, a disputes committee determined that the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management had to pay another 60 million euros to the builders. BAM closed the file after this ‘final settlement’.
Billionaire job? Thanks to the great builders
Smaller in Belgium
BAM’s revenues last quarter amounted to 1.55 billion euros, a decrease of 6 percent, partly due to the divestment of foreign activities. The company from Bunnik decided last year to focus on the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK, in order to become more profitable. In the first months of this year it therefore divested the Walloon operating company BAM Galère and took steps to sell the Belgian BAM Contractors. BAM already largely withdrew from Germany last year. The group also chooses no longer to subscribe to multi-billion-dollar projects, but prefers to focus on smaller works and residential construction. In the first three months of 2022, BAM sold 580 homes.
Board chairman Ruud Joosten raised the profit forecast for this year on Thursday. In 2021, BAM achieved an operating profit margin of 3.8 percent.