Drees & Sommer SE continued to expand its leading position in the industry in the 2022 financial year. The company specializes in consulting services in the fields of construction and real estate. Despite an increasingly challenging economic situation and international crises, the company was able to maintain its position, as shown by the results. Sales increased by 22,5 percent year on year to 703.7 million euros. The operating result went up to 84.7 million euros. In addition to the ongoing organic growth, Drees & Sommer SE continues to build on its strengths through national and international mergers.
Steffen Szeidl, Spokesperson of Drees & Sommer SE, commented: “We had a very good year in 2022, even though major changes in the markets, higher interest and inflation rates, and supply bottlenecks for materials and raw materials put a strain on general operating conditions. The recipe for success is based on the company’s agility and innovative strength. Both are reflected in a wide range of areas. These include opening up new markets, establishing strategic partnerships and our focus on developing forward-looking products for our clients. We drive sustainable transformation in the client projects that we supervise.”
Targeted Growth with Strategic Long-Term Equity Investments
In addition to ensuring high performance in its core business, Drees & Sommer SE is focusing on expanding its range of services and diversifying them on a forward-thinking basis. To do so, the company also made new long-term equity investments in the past financial year, both within Germany and internationally.
To further consolidate its pioneering role in the field of digital transformation, Drees & Sommer took over all shares in macom GmbH. The Stuttgart-based company specializes in integrated media technology and IT solutions for work, brand and learning spaces. And to strengthen its competency in the field of civil engineering, Drees & Sommer acquired a 100 percent stakeholding in LV Baumanagement GmbH with headquarters in Hamburg.
In the United Kingdom, Drees & Sommer successfully concluded the full takeover of the real estate and construction consultancy AA Projects. The company has seven offices in the UK and focuses on management and consulting services for private and public companies. In Austria, PM1 is strengthening Drees & Sommer's construction expertise. The service portfolio is now being expanded with regard to overall execution throughout Austria. With the acquisition of the Swedish firm GoToWork, Drees & Sommer expanded its expertise in the areas of user experience und new work, and pursued its growth path in Scandinavia as well.
Construction Transformation Must Pick up Speed
“Proven and trusting cooperation is what links us with all these companies. With combined forces, we aim to continue driving innovation in an industry that urgently needs to shape the transition. Digital developments and those that are more climate/environmentally friendly need to really pick up speed in order to stop the wasteful consumption of energy and raw materials.
It is now high time to start a comprehensive transformation in the construction industry, in which the turnaround in the way raw materials are used plays a key role, just as much as the urgently needed heating energy transition,“ said Steffen Szeidl.
Gray Is the New Green: Circulation Instead of Ecological One-Way Street
In Germany alone, the raw materials used for buildings total 15 to 16 billion metric tons. If these buildings had a materials passport, as is now also planned by the German federal government, many valuable raw materials could be reused during conversion or demolition. During demolition, it also avoids wasting the gray energy that is in all buildings. This has long been far from futuristic: Drees & Sommer subsidiary EPEA has been producing IDs of this type in the form of ‘circularity passports’ for over eight years and has tested them in more than 80 projects
Drees & Sommer has also developed an ESG toolbox for its clients. It makes it easy to bring together sustainability performance data from a wide range of sources. With just a few clicks, the toolbox provides a detailed overview of the current state of a property and where the greatest potential for optimization lies. Proposed activities can also be broken down by cost and carbon footprint savings. This lets you see at a glance which action has the best cost-benefit ratio. In addition, the ESG toolbox is suitable for a wide range of applications, from simple checklists to complex ratings with thousands of differently weighted criteria, through the management of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria at corporate level.
Outlook for 2023: Great Need for Action in the Existing Stock of Buildings and in Sector Coupling
While many new buildings are now being planned with recycling in mind and optimized with regard to energy efficiency, there is still a great need for action in the existing building stock. There is enormous potential for achieving climate targets in serial renovation, for example. “It provides huge opportunities to reduce the renovation backlog more quickly. Given the pressure to take action due to climate targets and regulatory requirements on the one hand, and the shortage of skilled workers on the other, this is of key importance for the heating energy transition in existing buildings,“ says Steffen Szeidl.
Dierk Mutschler, a colleague on the Executive Board, also sees significant opportunities in relation to the heating energy transition: “Opportunities are opening up in energy transformation, such as in the planning and construction of the production facilities and infrastructure required for this purpose. From charging infrastructure to large-scale industry, a key focus must be on sector coupling. With this in mind and as a result of deglobalization due to supply chain issues, it results in a certain industrial renaissance. For this reason, a major focus of the company has been and continues to be on projects involving chip and battery production, data centers, and realignment of the existing stock of buildings.” Uncertainties nevertheless remain in the global economic and business environment.
Focus on Employees
To tackle all this on the market side, the focus internally is primarily on the employees. Executive Board Member Marc Schömbs explains: “This success was only possible through the tireless commitment of our colleagues. We would like to express our gratitude. In a labor market that continues to be employee-oriented, it is important to gain and retain the best talent. To do this, we focused on various participation programs in the past year. We also continue to work on the topic of leadership every day, particularly at management level, with the aim of improving.“