Skanska increases specialization and strengthens internationalization
SKANSKA INCREASES SPECIALIZATION AND STRENGTHENS INTERNATIONALIZATION.
Skanska is strengthening its international operations through increased specialization and customer orientation. Civil engineering operations in all parts of the world will be merged to form a new business area, and all housing construction operations will be coordinated in another global business area, with the exception of the U.S. activities, which remain a separate business area. In paral-lel with the realign-ment of its business areas, Skanska will also establish a special, new business area focused on the growing percentage of privately financed infrastructure projects, so-called BOT (Build-Own-Transfer) projects.
The units reviewed briefly above comprise the main elements in a new organizational format pre-sented Thursday. Skanska’s new structure is designed to merge related operations in coordinated business areas to take advantage of synergy effects and economies of scale. The new structure will provide Skanska with greater strength in its continued internationalization, enhancing coordinated business activities between Group units in Sweden and abroad.
The new business approach is based on Skanska’s continued international expansion strategy, which has been intensi-fied by dramatic changes in the Swedish market, where new housing production has declined by more than half during the 1990s.
"The new organization will help to create a more specialized and competitive Skanska, both in our domestic markets and internationally. It is also a natural step in the development of our business op-era-tions and the 3T process of change," explains Melker Schörling, President and Group Chief Ex-ecutive of Skanska.
"We are also adapting operations to market trends in Europe and Asia. We strongly believe in BOT’s future potential and our idea is that the new BOT unit will finance, own and operate large infrastructure pro-jects where Skanska will act as contractor. The increasing percentage of large BOT pro-jects now charac-terizing trends in the infrastructure sector is well-suited to the operations of Skanska, particularly in view of our financial strength and expertise," continues Melker Schörling.
Lars Wiklander, Senior Vice President, International Construction, has been appointed Senior Vice President of the new BOT Projects business area. Claes Gustafson, Senior Vice President, Swedish Construction, has been named Senior Vice President of Building, with responsibility for housing con-struction in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and other international markets.
Jan-Gunnar Glave, Project Director of the Öresund Project, has been appointed Senior Vice Presi-dent of the Civil Engineering business area, with responsibility for all road construction and con-tracting opera-tions. He will continue as Chairman of the project company, Sundlink. Mats Williamson has been proposed as his successor, President of Sundlink Contractors. Mr. Williamson is now Vice President of Skanska Syd’s Civil Engineering Department.
Negotiations have been started with labor unions affected by Skanska’s new organizational struc-ture.
Danderyd, February 6, 1997
SKANSKA AB
Group Public Affairs