By Boris Dombrowski
Massively increasing energy costs – they are also causing problems for Thomas Frisch (58) from Pankow.
He is head of the civil engineering company Frisch & Faust and the company ABF-Straßenbau with a total of around 200 employees and a good 25 million euros in annual sales. BZ met him for a crisis interview.
BZ: How is the situation with you?
Thomas Fresh: Tense, especially in the road construction sector. This is because asphalt mix is very energy-intensive to produce and has therefore become more and more expensive. It is currently only traded at daily prices. And they are significantly higher than the price we used to calculate when we submitted an offer for an order months earlier.
A long-term calculation is no longer possible?
Yes, that’s right. And that is extremely problematic. Because in road construction, almost 80 percent of the costs are material costs. If the asphalt mix is now so much more expensive than planned months ago, the proceeds will drop massively.
What does that mean specifically?
After all, a federal decree now applies to municipal clients, so that they have to bear the higher material costs. Not so with private clients. As a company, we have to use a lot of diplomacy to try to reach an agreement so that we are not left alone with the high costs of building materials.
And if that does not work?
Then sooner or later it goes to the reserves of a company. And if a company is not so well positioned financially, there is a risk of insolvency. The risk is high.
Also for yours companies?
So far we have been able to absorb the difficult situation with our reserves. But the cost increases are really extreme. An example: Before the war in the Ukraine, our fuel costs for our construction machines were still around 500,000 euros a year. We are now twice as high at a good one million euros.