Orascom maintains record order backlog as new orders drop

The company, is building several major infrastructure projects across Egypt, including Egypt’s Monorail from east Cairo to the country’s new administrative capital. It also recently completed the Grand Egyptian Museum.

It reported a 5.1% increase in revenue for Q3 of 2024, rising to US$842.5 million. But revenue for the first nine months of the year dropped 1.9% year on year to US$2.3 billion. Revenue in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) continued to decline, falling 20% year on year in the first nine months of 2024. But that was offset by a 21.9% increase in the USA, where it owns Weitz and Contrack Watts.

Revenue from Orascom’s USA operations for the first nine months of the year reached just over $1.2 billion, outstripping revenue from MEA, which was just under $1.1 billion.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was up 31.4% year on year for the first nine months of 2024, to $119.4 million

The company’s consolidated backlog for the first nine months of 2024, excluding its 50% share in Europe-based contractor BESIX was nearly $8 billion, an increase of 14.7% year on year.

But new awards fell over the same period by 33.1% to nearly $2.6 billion.

Inclusive of BESIX, the backlog stood at $12.5 billion, up 27.5%, while new awards increased 8.4% to $5.6 billion.

The company said the year-on-year decline in new awards was “due to be above-average level of new awards achieved in Q3 2023, during which large projects were signed in the transportation sectors in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)”.

It added. “Nevertheless, the Group’s current backlog is at record levels even after the devaluation of the Egyptian pound in March 2024.”

Orascom CEO Osama Bishai said, “On the construction front, we continue to make tangible progress on our regional geographic diversification efforts particularly in UAE and KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).

“In addition, execution is on track at our large-scale work in Egypt, which is mostly comprised of infrastructure projects that are funded by international financial institutions. Our U.S. business continues to achieve both backlog and earnings growth, highlighting its increasing positive contribution to the Group and our strengthening presence across specialized sectors such as data centres and aviation.”