Nine-month operating profit reaches 671.1 billion won, up 131.3% on-year

Order backlog stands at 54.9 trillion won, equivalent to 6.8 years of annual sales

Daewoo Engineering & Construction's headquarters building in Euljiro, Seoul. [Daewoo Engineering & Construction]
Daewoo Engineering & Construction's headquarters building in Euljiro, Seoul. [Daewoo Engineering & Construction]

Daewoo Engineering & Construction announced Tuesday its third-quarter earnings (consolidated, preliminary), reporting sales of 1.84 trillion won ($1.39 billion) and operating profit of 183.2 billion won.

Third-quarter operating profit surged 223.7% from 56.6 billion won in the same period last year, reflecting a sharp improvement in profitability. Sales, however, fell 7.4% from 1.99 trillion won a year earlier as the number of active project sites shrank. By business segment, sales broke down as follows: architecture at 1.3 trillion won, civil engineering at 316.1 billion won, plant at 187.1 billion won and other consolidated subsidiaries at 39.1 billion won.

On a nine-month cumulative basis, sales came to 5.84 trillion won, down 7.9% from 6.34 trillion won in the same period last year. Cumulative operating profit, however, rose 131.3% to 671.1 billion won from 290.1 billion won a year earlier. The cumulative operating profit margin climbed to 11.5%, up 6.9 percentage points year on year, crossing into double digits.

"Sales declined somewhat as the number of active sites decreased, but cumulative operating profit and the operating margin improved significantly on the back of our quality-focused management," a company official said.

The company also bolstered its order book. New orders for the first nine months totaled 12.48 trillion won, up 11.9% from 11.16 trillion won in the same period last year. During the third quarter, large domestic construction and redevelopment projects drove results — including the Cheongna International Business Complex Block M5 (818.1 billion won), the Sinimun transit-oriented redevelopment (529.2 billion won), the Seoul Cheonho A1-1 redevelopment (372 billion won) and the Seoul Cheongpa Zone 1 redevelopment (355.6 billion won).

The order backlog stood at 54.85 trillion won at the end of the third quarter, equivalent to roughly 6.8 years of annual sales. That figure is up 8.4% from the year-end 2025 backlog of 50.6 trillion won.

Daewoo E&C said it plans to sharpen its focus on quality-driven management and accelerate its push into overseas markets to sustain growth even as the domestic construction sector faces a downturn.

"Major large-scale project awards are imminent, including a liquefied natural gas central processing facility in Papua New Guinea and the Rovuma LNG project in Mozambique," a company official said. "We will concentrate our efforts on securing quality orders and maintaining rigorous risk management for the remainder of the year to meet our annual targets without fail."

Meanwhile, Daewoo E&C recently carried out a company-wide organizational restructuring and executive reshuffle to strengthen its core businesses — including urban redevelopment and data centers — and to upgrade its safety and quality management systems.


hwshin@heraldcorp.com