March 2 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian civil engineering contractor Trace Group Hold [BUL:T57] said that its consolidated net profit fell to 1.2 million levs ($650,703/613,550 euro) in 2022, compared to 6.4 million levs a year earlier.
Trace Group Hold's overall revenue increased to 216.1 million levs last year from 163.7 million levs in 2021, the company said in its annual financial statement published on Wednesday.
At 182.7 million levs, Trace Group Hold's revenue from construction contracts recorded a yearly growth of 38.5% in 2022 and represented some 85% of overall income.
The group also recorded a significant rise in total expenses, to 214.7 million levs in 2022 from 154.7 million levs, due to notably higher expenses for materials, hired services and cost of goods sold. By contrast, the company's personnel expenses dropped 6.3% to some 23.8 million levs.
The complex economic environment has had a negative effect on the company's ongoing investment projects, with performance far less favourable than planned, Trace Group Hold noted. Delays of more than a year in large projects due to the COVID-19 pandemic were compounded by the recent price spikes in energy and materials such as steel, cement and bitumen, the company added. Forecasts are difficult to make even for the short term as some projects are being carried out at contract terms that have not yet taken into account the persistent increases in prices of materials.
Nevertheless, Trace Group Hold projects a 160% annual jump in revenue from client contracts to 51.6 million levs in the first quarter of 2023. This includes an estimated annual surge of 175% in first-quarter construction contracts revenue. The company has recently won projects in railway and road reconstruction and has signed a 75 million levs deal to build a section of Sofia metro network.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)