Annual General Meeting of YIT Corporation on March 12, 2019: Kari Kauniskangas, President and CEO: “The year of the merger, 2018, was a success for YIT in many ways”

YIT Corporation will hold its Annual General Meeting in Helsinki today, March 12, 2019, at 10:00 a.m. In his review to the General Meeting, President and CEO Kari Kauniskangas will present YIT’s financial statements for 2018 and the outlook for the current year. He will also comment briefly on the Group’s development during the first quarter.

“The year 2018 was successful for YIT in many ways. YIT and Lemminkäinen merged at the beginning of February. In addition to actual business operations, we focused significant resources on the integration of the companies and establishing a common company culture. The synergies achieved from the merger began to show in the Group’s result in 2018 in line with the set targets. We specified the previously given overall synergy estimate from EUR 40–50 million to EUR 45–50 million by the end of 2020.

In September, we announced our new strategy for 2019–2021. The target of the strategy is to improve profitability and to strengthen financial stability. The core of the strategy is urban development and it is built on YIT’s key strength, development and implementation of self-developed projects. The year 2018 was an excellent example of this. Self-developed projects and their successful sales in the Housing Finland and CEE, Business premises and Partnership properties segments brought in the lion’s share of the segments’ revenue and profit as well as the entire Group’s profit. The construction and leasing of the Mall of Tripla have proceeded very well and ahead of our targets.

During the year, the result of the Infrastructure projects and Housing Russia segments was weak and the Paving segment’s result was modest. The result for the fourth quarter was weighed down particularly by project write-downs and risk provisions related to old contracts. We implemented a large number of measures during the year to improve the financial performance. In addition to the measures we have taken, our strong and healthier order backlog and good financial position give us a solid foundation for this year.

This year, as in 2018, the fourth quarter is expected to be clearly the strongest quarter. The Group estimates its adjusted operating profit for the first quarter of 2019 to be on a par with the comparison period (pro forma),” says President and CEO Kari Kauniskangas.

The invitation to the Annual General Meeting, including the Board of Directors’ proposals to the Annual General Meeting, was published as a stock exchange release on February 1, 2019. The Board proposes that a dividend of 27 cents (EUR 0.27) per share be paid from the unrestricted equity and that the rest of the profit be carried forward to the distributable equity.

The documents of the Annual General Meeting and President and CEO Kari Kauniskangas’ presentation are available on the company website at www.yitgroup.com/en/corporate-governance/annual-general-meeting/agm2019

For further information, please contact:

Hanna Jaakkola, Vice President, Investor Relations, YIT Corporation, tel. +358 40 5666 070, hanna.jaakkola@yit.fi
Ilkka Salonen, CFO, YIT Corporation, tel. +358 45 359 4434, ilkka.salonen@yit.fi

YIT Corporation

Hanna Jaakkola

Vice President, Investor Relations

Distribution: NASDAQ Helsinki, major media, www.yitgroup.com   

YIT is the largest Finnish and significant North European construction company. We develop and build apartments and living services, business premises and entire areas. We are also specialised in demanding infrastructure construction and paving. Together with our customers, our nearly 10,000 professionals are creating more functional, attractive and sustainable cities and environments. We work in 11 countries: Finland, Russia, Scandinavia, the Baltic States, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. The new YIT was born when over 100-year-old YIT Corporation and Lemminkäinen Corporation merged on February 1, 2018. Our pro forma revenue for 2018 was approximately EUR 3.8 billion. YIT Corporation's share is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Oy. www.yitgroup.com