Over 150 kilometers of motorways, expressways and bypasses have been added in Poland in the first half of the year. Another 150 km are expected to open in the second half. Drivers are celebrating, but for construction companies the road-building 'pie’ is shrinking, forcing them to diversify their portfolios.
Just before the summer holidays, road builders gave drivers several gifts, including opening the last section of the S6 expressway between Szczecin and the Tri-City and a fragment of the A2 motorway east of Warsaw towards Biała Podlaska. Combined with news of new tenders announced by the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA) and contracts signed with contractors, the process of building Polish roads is clearly progressing.
At the end of last year, drivers had nearly 5,466 km of expressways (over 1,894 km of motorways and 3,571 km of express roads). In the first six months of this year, another 156 km were added – 12 sections of motorways, expressways and bypasses. The plans for the whole year speak of about 300 km of new high-speed roads. What delights drivers, however, signals that the 'pie’ for construction firms is systematically shrinking. The entire network of high-speed roads in Poland is eventually to be about 8,000 km, so the vast majority of road work is already behind us.
Diversification becomes a necessity
Representatives of the Ministry of Infrastructure and GDDKiA argue that work for contractors will not run out, pointing out that some roads – due to insufficient capacity – will need expansion (e.g., the A2 motorway between Łódź and Warsaw or the A4 between Katowice and Kraków), while many others, due to their age, require modernization. Local governments, which own the vast majority of roads in Poland, will also remain clients 'forever’. Company managers nod in agreement, but cautiously diversify their portfolios, seeking orders for their companies outside the road sector.
Last year Unibep and Mirbud made their debut in the rail sector (for Mirbud, 'road engineering facilities’ still account for over 80 percent of the portfolio), while the market leader Budimex is increasingly expanding in the energy sector and announces the construction of data centers. All major players on the construction market pin high hopes on the construction of Port Polska, military investments, the construction of a nuclear power plant and the development of transmission networks.
Preparing for the post-road era
– We are aware that the Polish market is becoming increasingly mature and the structure of contracts and clients will change. Our goal is to prepare for the situation when we finish building roads and will have to fill the gap in the portfolio with orders from other areas – said Artur Popko, CEO of Budimex, in an interview with WNP.
– We are looking for effective diversification of our activities – confirmed Andrzej Sterczyński, CEO of Unibep.
The reaction of the stock market is also telling. On the day the article was published, shares of Budimex fell 2.00 percent to PLN 707.40, Unibep dropped 0.31 percent to PLN 13.02, while Mirbud gained 2.73 percent to PLN 10.53. The divergence illustrates the different pace of transformation among the largest players.
Źródło: WNP.PL, Fot. GDDKiA / materiały prasowe
