ESSEN (dpa-AFX) - The construction group Hochtief DE0006070006 is sticking to its profit target for 2026 after a mixed quarter. Revenue rose by 5.3 percent to almost 9.4 billion euros in the first three months of the current year, as the company announced on Monday. Group profit adjusted for special effects increased by almost 30 percent year-on-year to 217 million euros. Analysts had expected more revenue and less profit.
The quarterly figures were not initially well received on the stock market. In an initial reaction, the shares slipped to 501 euros. Most recently, the shares traded unchanged at 549 euros. Since the record high of 554 euros last Wednesday, the share price had barely budged.
Hochtief's order books are well filled thanks to the AI boom. Incoming orders grew by more than 17 percent to 15.2 billion euros. It was reported that 60 percent of this came from the growth areas. The order backlog amounted to 79.3 billion euros at the end of March.
"We have made a successful start to 2026, with high profit growth and a record order backlog," said CEO Juan Santamaría Cases, who is also head of Hochtief's parent company ACS ES0167050915 according to the press release.
Expert Graham Hunt from analyst firm Jefferies confirmed that the construction group had made a good start to the year. Thanks to the Australian subsidiary Turner, net profit was 4.6 percent above the average market expectation. Its similarly strong order intake points to a further increase in demand in the wake of the data center boom for artificial intelligence (AI). Against this backdrop, the Group's profit growth target of 20 to 30 percent for 2026 seems conservative.
CEO Santamaría Cases believes his company is particularly well positioned in growth areas such as artificial intelligence, digitalization, defence and the tech sector. Demand for modern infrastructure is increasing in these areas. Tech companies are investing a lot of money in the expansion of computing power due to growing data volumes and the AI trend. But governments around the world have also significantly increased their defense budgets.
In the current year, Hochtief's management continues to expect an adjusted net profit of 950 million to 1.025 billion euros thanks to a good order backlog. In 2025, the adjusted profit had risen by 26.3 percent to 789.3 million euros.
Including special effects, Hochtief reported a profit of 210 million euros in the first three months. This was almost a third less than in the previous year, when Hochtief had benefited from the Flatiron transaction. Hochtief and the Spanish parent company ACS had created the second-largest civil engineering and construction company in the United States by merging the US subsidiary and the ACS subsidiary Dragados North America. Hochtief DE0006070006 holds 38.2 percent of the shares in the company, ACS the remaining 61.8 percent.
The share price of the construction company, which is majority-owned by the Spanish infrastructure group ACS ES0167050915 has broken one record high after another since the summer of 2025. It has been boosted in particular by major orders in the data center sector. Since the turn of the year, the share price has risen by more than half. Over the next twelve months, the share price has more than tripled.
Source: deutsche-boerse.com
