YIT Capital Markets Day today in Helsinki, the company’s new strategy as a topic

YIT’s Capital Markets Day for investors and analysts will be held today, on September 27, 2018, in Pasila, Helsinki, at the Otavamedia premises that YIT will be renovating for new use in the near future. The main theme of the day is the Group’s new strategy for 2019–2021, published on September 19.

The target of YIT’s new strategy is to improve profitability and to strengthen financial stability. The company’s strategic priorities, sources of growth and structural profitability include urban development and non-cyclical businesses. The strategy is built on the strong megatrends of urbanisation, sustainability and digitalisation. The successful integration of YIT and Lemminkäinen, establishing common ways of working and a common culture as well as achieving synergies are an important part of the cornerstones of the company’s success.

Strategic development programmes

The foundation for the Group’s strategy is that each segment will be competitive in its business and market area driven by development efforts at the segment level. Additionally, YIT will implement its strategy through three common development programmes: Performance, Customer focus and Green growth.

• The Performance programme ensures that the synergies sought through the merger will be achieved and improves productivity by decreasing waste and turnaround times, without compromising quality.
• The Customer focus programme seeks growth by improving products, services and the customer experience.
• The Green growth programme supports growth and improves productivity by applying the principles of sustainable development.

Innovation ecosystem as the heart of urban development

YIT has strengthened its internal and partnership-driven innovation ecosystem in various ways over the past three years. YIT has several partnership agreements focusing on project development of which

the most well-known is Regenero Oy, established by YIT and HGR in 2016. Regenero develops hybrid projects mainly focused on working environments in Finland, in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Partnerships allow the company to expand its development project resources and accelerate the implementation of its multi-year pipeline of development projects. Ownership of partnership projects, their rental income and capital gains are reported in the Partnership properties business segment’s figures. The actual construction as well as the revenue and profit recognition are carried out through Business premises and Housing Finland and CEE segments. 

The Tripla project currently under construction in Helsinki’s Pasila district is an excellent example of innovative urban development and capital-efficient partnership. The project combines YIT’s strengths: the ability to create and implement challenging hybrid projects. YIT is developing the former railway yard and idle land into a new attractive urban centre with jobs, homes, places for people to get together, a hotel and a world-class shopping oasis.  At the Capital Markets Day, YIT will provide an update on the Tripla project and its role in the Group’s strategy.

Targeting EUR 100 million annual operating profit from non-cyclical businesses

A broad project portfolio, rental income, the measurement of assets at fair value and steady streams of capital gains make the Partnership properties segment a non-cyclical business. Other businesses that grow or remain stable throughout economic cycles include paving, mineral aggregates, road maintenance, renovation, property management services and living services. The target is to generate an annual, steady operating profit of approximately EUR 100 million from these businesses starting from 2019.

“The strategy of the new YIT is a natural continuation of YIT’s previous strategy. Our target is to strengthen our position as a leading urban developer and to decrease the impact of economic cycles on our businesses. The merger has made us fundamentally an even stronger company financially and the synergies enhance our competitiveness,” says Kari Kauniskangas, President and CEO. “We are very excited about the new strategy and will start implementing it with effort.”.

Estimates of housing sales and asphalt production for the current quarter

In the Housing Finland and CEE segment, housing sales have remained good and the outlook is favourable in all market areas. We estimate the consumer housing sales in the third quarter to be approximately 550 units (Q3/2017: 771 units) in Finland and approximately 250 (Q3/2017: 216) apartments in the CEE countries. Additionally, YIT estimates to sell further to consumers approximately 60 apartments of projects previously sold to the YCE Housing I fund (Q3/2017: 50). In Russia, we estimate that the housing sales volume in the third quarter will be almost 900 units (Q3/2017: 814).

The estimate for total asphalt production volume for the third quarter is approximately 3 million tonnes (Q3/2017: 3.3).

Capital Markets Day

The Capital Markets Day programme starts today, September 27, 2018, at 9:00 a.m. local time. The presentations can be followed live on YIT’s website at www.yitgroup.com/webcast.  During the President and CEO’s presentation, starting at approximately 9:00 a.m., a teleconference is available for investors and analysts.

The conference call numbers for participants from:
Finland +358 (0)9 7479 0361
France +33 (0)1 76 77 22 74
Germany +49 (0)69 2222 13420
Norway +47 2100 2610
Sweden +46 (0)8 5033 6574
Switzerland +41 (0)44 580 7206  
USA +1 646 828 8143
and UK and other countries +44 (0)330 336 9105
The participants will be asked to provide the following confirmation code: 4559856

The presentations will be available on YIT’s website at https://www.yitgroup.com/en/investors/reports-and-presentations/capital-markets-day.

For further information, please contact:

Hanna Jaakkola, Vice President, Investor Relations, YIT Corporation, tel. +358 40 5666 070, hanna.jaakkola@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 construct and develop apartments, business premises and entire residential areas. We are also specialised in demanding infrastructure construction and paving. Together with our customers, our 10,000 professionals are creating more functional, more attractive and more 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 2017 was over EUR 3.8 billion. YIT Corporation’s share is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki. www.yitgroup.com