Thursday, 27 August 2026
PORR increased profitability during the first half of 2026 despite broadly unchanged construction output and a decline in new orders, with infrastructure spending in Germany, Poland and Central and Eastern Europe providing much of the group’s forward visibility.
Production output reached €3.17 billion in the first six months, virtually unchanged from the corresponding period of 2025. Revenue slipped 1.1% to €2.93 billion, partly reflecting the effects of the prolonged winter and a greater proportion of activity carried out through joint ventures and construction consortia.
Profitability moved in the opposite direction. EBITDA increased 11.6% to €171.1 million, while EBIT advanced 15.6% to €56.3 million. Pre-tax profit rose 26.8% to €49.2 million and consolidated net profit increased almost 24% to €36.4 million. Earnings per share reached €0.71, compared with €0.53 a year earlier.
The results indicate that PORR is generating stronger earnings without relying on significant top-line expansion. Lower expenditure on materials and purchased services contributed to the improvement, although personnel costs increased during the period. The company also benefited from a €6.4 million one-off contribution connected with the disposal of an operating property held through a joint venture.
The order picture was more mixed. PORR ended June with a backlog of €9.84 billion, 4.4% higher year-on-year and equivalent to roughly one and a half years of activity according to management. New orders during the half-year, however, declined 14.4% to €3.47 billion.
That represents a noticeable change from the opening quarter. At the end of March, PORR’s backlog had exceeded €10 billion for the first time and first-quarter order intake had increased 14.7% year-on-year. Trading_Statement_Q1_final.pdf The subsequent H1 decline in new orders therefore provides an important qualification to an otherwise strong set of earnings figures.
Management nevertheless points to a substantial pipeline that had not yet been incorporated into the June order book. Following the reporting date, PORR secured a €270 million three-year framework agreement connected with German military construction, alongside approximately €200 million of additional German building contracts. In Poland, another €180 million of infrastructure work had been secured after the end of June.
More significantly for future activity, the company reported more than €4.5 billion of large projects in Poland and CEE that were approaching the final stages of procurement or bidding. In Romania, PORR was also highly ranked for a motorway project worth approximately €550 million, although the contract had not been awarded at the reporting date.
Poland remains an increasingly important part of the group’s operations. It generated €494 million of production output during the first half, representing 15.6% of PORR’s total activity. Germany accounted for 23%, while Austria remained by far the largest individual market with 48%. Romania contributed 5%, with the Czech Republic and Slovakia together accounting for 5.2%.
The composition of construction demand is also changing. Civil engineering output increased 7.2% during the first half, while building construction declined 2.6%, partly because winter conditions delayed activity in Austria and Germany. Infrastructure has consequently become an important counterweight to weakness in parts of the traditional building market.
Several major projects illustrate that shift. PORR’s first-half wins included a section of the S6 western bypass around Szczecin and work on Poland’s DK25 road, together with participation in Germany’s Fehmarn Sound crossing. In building construction, the company secured work associated with X-FAB’s semiconductor manufacturing expansion in Erfurt as well as residential, mixed-use and healthcare projects.
The wider European construction environment remains divided. PORR’s report cites expectations for construction output across the Euroconstruct markets to increase in 2026, but the improvement is heavily weighted towards civil engineering. Housing remains comparatively weak, while energy networks, water infrastructure, railways and other publicly supported projects are providing stronger growth prospects.
This distinction is becoming increasingly important for contractors. Companies with exposure to large transport, energy and public infrastructure programmes are operating against a considerably different demand backdrop from businesses dependent on private residential or conventional commercial development.
PORR has maintained its full-year growth expectations despite the softer first-half order intake. Management expects production and revenue to increase by between 2% and 4% in 2026 and is targeting an EBIT margin of 3.2% to 3.3%.
For the European construction market, PORR’s first-half performance points to a broader transition rather than a uniform recovery. Private development remains constrained in several sectors, but transport networks, industrial facilities and publicly backed infrastructure are creating substantial workloads. The strength of PORR’s €9.8 billion backlog therefore says as much about where European construction capital is moving as it does about the contractor itself: increasingly towards infrastructure and specialised projects rather than a broad-based revival across every part of the building market.
