Swedish contractor NCC has started an aggressive plan to make the company a smaller, more selective and profitable unit. Job losses could run-to as many as 2,500. This includes a sharp downsizing of the company’s loss-making tunnelling activities.
NCC told T&TI that restructuring the tunnelling division was still being analysed and said that only the loss making activities would be affected. This was by no means all of its tunnelling jobs. NCC employs 185 people in Norway’s tunnelling division and 45 in Sweden.
CEO, Alf Göransson said, “The forecast for 2002 is that we will report a profit of at least SEK 1bn after net financial items. The long-term profitability target, in terms of the return on equity after tax, has been raised from 12 to 15%. The aim is that cash flow will be positive and that we will achieve an equity/assets ratio of approximately 30%.”
