2007 was a good year for HOCHTIEF. I am delighted to report that the corporate goals we set ourselves for this fiscal year have been achieved. Despite the loss in the German building construction segment, we have succeeded among other things in boosting consolidated net profit to EUR 140.7 million. At the beginning of the year, we had held out the prospect to our shareholders of generating over EUR 100 million in consolidated net profit.
HOCHTIEF continues to confirm its strong market position as a leading international construction services provider. All over the world, clients ask for our services by name– that goes for development and construction as much as for concessions business and other services. And they benefit from the synergies in our service portfolio at every stage in the life cycle of infrastructure projects, real estate and facilities. In the year under review, we succeeded in systematically augmenting our range of services by way of a number of attractive acquisitions. Our modules dovetail perfectly when it comes to tailoring made-to-measure solutions. This is how added value is created – for our clients just as for you, our shareholders.
Yet our performance is reflected not just in figures. For instance, HOCHTIEF was once again included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for 2007/2008"a fantastic accolade for our sustainable management to which we remain firmly committed in future. Sustainability is very much written with a capital "S" at HOCHTIEF. In the year under review, we focused intensively on energy efficiency. Here, we are paving the way to the markets of the future with our entry into the geothermal energy sector and our
HOCHTIEF Energy Management, among other areas. HOCHTIEF's growth markets are also in Asia, particularly in India and the Gulf states. The dynamic economies in these regions are driving growth. And this is where notably our Australian subsidiary Leighton plays an active role. The merger between Leighton's activities in the Gulf and those of Al Habtoor Engineering in 2007 is an expression of how we are proactively developing these markets. We are at the same time tapping new markets in Russia as well as in Central and Eastern Europe where, for instance, HOCHTIEF Projektentwicklung has set up a company in Romania.
We are on the ground in economically attractive regions– that is the basis for our success.
In the HOCHTIEF Airport division, the high point of 2007 was marked by the majority holding in Budapest Airport secured by a HOCHTIEF AirPort-led consortium. This brings our portfolio to six airports, all of which showed excellent performance in the year under review. Celebrating its tenth year in business in 2007, HOCHTIEF AirPort ranks among the world's leading private and independent airport management and investment companies. Going forward, we aim to expand our airports business and are in the process of carefully reviewing options for involvement in other privatization projects.
The units in our HOCHTIEF Development division can similarly report a gratifying business curve. HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions secured public-private partnership (PPP) contracts for two toll highways in Greece as well as for a section of Germany's A4 autobahn in Thuringia. At the same time, we have further extended our PPP schools portfolio to include new contracts in Germany and Scotland.
Our successful track record in concessions business has just received a special distinction. Not one, but two HOCHTIEF projects won Project Finance Magazine's prestigious "Deal of the Year 2007" award – Budapest Airport and the PPP freeway project Y in Austria.
