Led by Egypt’s richest family, Orascom Construction reports profits of $125.3 million in 2021

Orascom Construction, a leading multinational engineering and construction corporation founded by Egypt’s richest family, reported a double-digit percentage increase in profit at the end of 2021 owing to enhanced collections and better liquidity management.

The construction group’s profit climbed from $97.1 million at the end of 2020 to $125.3 million, owing to well-executed expansion strategies by the management, which resulted in a single-digit percentage increase in the group’s revenue from $3.37 billion to $3.54 billion.

The double-digit percentage increase in its profit can be linked to the performance of its building materials subsidiaries, which include building materials subsidiaries, infrastructure build-own-operate assets, and operation and maintenance projects.

Aside from the robust performance delivered by its building materials subsidiaries, the group’s revenue and profit expanded significantly with the addition of new projects, resulting in a healthy consolidated backlog of $8.1 billion, which includes the group’s 50-percent stake in BESIX.

Due to robust development in its operations in the Middle East and Africa, as well as its operations in the United States, new projects added during the year climbed by 32.5 percent to $5.61 billion.

In the Middle East, the group signed $2 billion in new contracts in 2021, including a deal to undertake all work in Egypt to connect Egypt’s and Saudi Arabia’s national power networks, water projects in Egypt and Tunisia, and Egyptian transportation projects.

It also signed $1.6 billion in new awards in the United States, a 72-percent increase over the previous year.

The largest projects signed in the United States were mainly in the commercial sector, supplementing sizable projects in the data center and student housing sectors that were signed in the first nine months of 2021.

“We completed another year of several important milestones, steady performance and strong positioning,” Orascom Construction CEO Osama Bishai said. “Nevertheless, we cannot isolate ourselves from the current global environment that has brought about a new set of challenges.”

Orascom Construction is a multinational engineering and construction firm created by the late Egyptian businessman Onsi Sawiris, who passed away on June 29 at the age of 91.

The billionaire Sawiris family controls 51.8 percent of the Egypt-based contractor through OS Private Trust Company, while Egypt’s richest man, Nassef Sawiris, owns 28.97 percent.

As of press time on March 22, the group’s shares were trading at EGP72.57 ($3.914) per share. This is 1.76-percent higher than their opening price on the Egyptian Stock Exchange this morning.