Bilfinger Berger - History

History

Bilfinger dates back to 1880 when August Bernatz founded Bernatz Ingenieurwissenschaft as an engineering business: it became known, from 1886 as Bernatz & Grün and, from 1892, as Grün & Bilfinger.

In 1970 Grün & Bilfinger acquired a majority stake in Julius Berger-Bauboag AG, itself a merger of two companies, Julius Berger Tiefbau AG and Berlinische Boden-Gesellschaft AG, both founded in 1890. The combined business, fully integrated in 1975, finally took the name Bilfinger & Berger Bauaktiengesellschaft. In 1994 the acquisition of Razel Company took place.

In 2001 the business changed its name to Bilfinger Berger AG.

In 2005, Bilfinger bought all shares of Babcock Borsig Service Group from Deutsche Beteiligungs.

In 2008 the company sold Razel to French group Fayat for 137 million euro.

In October 2009 the Company acquired directly MCE Beteiligungsverwaltungs GmbH itself, a business based in Linz focused on the design, construction and maintenance of facilities in the process industry and the energy sector.

In November 2009 Bilfinger announced that it is considering floating Bilfinger Berger Australia on the Australian Securities Exchange via an initial public offering (IPO). The prospectus for the IPO for the new Australian entity (named Valemus) was issued in June 2010 and the company was listed on the ASE in July.

In recent years Bilfinger has shifted the focus of its activities toward the services business. In 2010, services contributed to 80% of the company’s total output volume of €8,123 million and EBIT for the services division amounted to €297 million. In November 2011, Bilfinger acquired Neo Group, which is based in Surat in North-Western India. In 2010 Bilfinger became a European Company (SE, Societas Europaea).