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Orascom Construction finished 2025 with a record $9 billion backlog and net profit up 65%, posting results that showed a company pushing deeper into the United States while also building a growing portfolio of renewable energy and infrastructure assets it intends to own rather than just build.
The engineering and infrastructure group said consolidated backlog climbed 18.9% year over year to $9.03 billion as of Dec. 31, the highest year-end level in the company's history. Including its 50% stake in Belgian contractor BESIX, pro forma backlog reached nearly $13 billion. New awards surged 86.6% to $5.58 billion.
Net profit attributable to shareholders rose 65.1% to $194.8 million. Revenue climbed 55.1% to $5.05 billion and EBITDA more than doubled to $305 million. Adjusted EBITDA, which strips out one-off gains from legacy claims, rose 82.2% to $276 million.
Chief Executive Osama Bishai said Orascom stayed focused on operational excellence, disciplined capital allocation and working with clients to manage geopolitical risks through contractual protections. The results, released Tuesday, showed the group drawing on scale and geographic spread to offset an uncertain global operating environment.
The most striking shift in the numbers is what is happening in the United States. US backlog jumped 80.6% to $2.9 billion and now accounts for 32.1% of the group's total, a meaningful re-weighting for a company long associated primarily with Egypt and the Gulf. The growth came through Weitz, Orascom's wholly owned US construction subsidiary, which picked up work across data centers, aviation and commercial construction. Among the projects highlighted were the Lighthouse data center campus in Wisconsin for Vantage Data Centers and the Four Seasons Resort and Residences development in Telluride, Colorado.
The Middle East and Africa remain the core. Egypt and Saudi Arabia together account for 62.2% of consolidated backlog, with that segment's total rising 2.4% to $6.1 billion. The company is active on major Egyptian infrastructure including a 2,000-kilometer high-speed rail network and metro systems in Cairo and Alexandria. In Saudi Arabia, it is working on the 3 GW Qurayyah combined cycle power plant. A large seawater treatment and supply project in the UAE is also part of the active workbook.
Beyond contracting, Orascom is trying to build a business that generates recurring income from assets rather than just fees from building things. Net income from its concessions segment rose sixfold to $12.7 million and represented 6.5% of total net profit, a small share currently but a growing one. The company brought the 650 MW Ras Ghareb wind farm in Egypt and the Dammam Independent Sewage Treatment Plant in Saudi Arabia into full commercial operations during 2025. In March 2026, it signed a power purchase agreement for a new 900 MW wind farm in Egypt, which will push total wind capacity to 1.8 GW once operational.
BESIX added steadily to the overall picture. Its contribution to Orascom's net profit edged up 9.4% to $24.7 million, with active projects including the Zayed National Museum in the UAE, an Aramco stadium in Saudi Arabia, an LNG project in Mozambique and the Oosterweel tunnel in Belgium. BESIX standalone backlog came in at 6.7 billion euros and new awards at 2.9 billion euros for 2025, both slightly down from the prior year.
Other business lines within the group contributed $25.6 million in net profit, led by equipment services, steel fabrication and facility management. One subsidiary, NSF, executed export orders for industrial projects in Europe and the US while also supplying turbine towers for the Ras Ghareb wind farm.
On safety, the company said lost time injury rates improved in both its Middle East and Africa operations and in the US despite more hours worked overall. It completed 21 OSHA inspections in the US in 2025 without receiving a citation.
Shareholders received a larger payout as well. Orascom distributed total dividends of $0.47 per share, or $51.8 million, in 2025, up 20.5% from a year earlier.
The results land as the company also navigates a proposed combination with OCI Global. Orascom shareholders have already approved special resolutions related to the deal, though OCI shareholders have not yet voted and the transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals.
