Steady and controlled growth is the general objective, which Per Aarsleff A/S brings into the 21^st century. No changes are required for the company to live up to this objective. Ever since Graduate Engineer Per Aarsleff set up his own business on 4 January 1947, the company has been managed with success according to precisely this objective. Per Aarsleff left a secure position with the Danish state, bought one excavator, rented two others and opened his own brown coal field in Central Jutland.

Per Aarsleff took small but wise steps and started with a workforce of 14 men. "It was important not to expand too fast, to avoid taking too many chances and always to have our finances under control", says Per Aarsleff.

The above principles proved sound, and over the years firm confidence in them produced fruitful growth layers within the company. The original workforce of 14 men has now, more than 60 years later, grown to approx. 3,200, employed in the parent company, the subsidiaries and the associated companies. All in all a group enjoying professional respect both in Denmark and abroad. The annual turnover, which peaked at DKK40,000 the first year, reached almost DKK4.9 billion 60 years later. On the basis of the unimpressed inventiveness of the brown coal period within the fields of machine development, work planning and logistics, a corporate culture has taken root, displaying creativity both in the field, the offices and the drawing offices.

Per Aarsleff himself has characterised his corporate strategy as follows: "Whether it concerns fuel, sewers or holes in the ground, we have always specialised in fields that were just complicated enough for others not to be interested in them, but which were cyclically stable. Difficult one-off jobs which have developed into specialities. At the same time we have always tried to keep our machines fully employed and tailored for specific purposes".

The general manager of Aarsleff at the turn of the millennium is Ebbe Malte Iversen, who was employed as engineer in the company in 1975. Today he is the third man in the management chair, following Per Aarsleff and his successor Palle Svejstrup. Palle Svejstrup began his career at Aarsleff in 1965 and has served as chairman of the board in the period from 1999 to 2010 when Niels Skovgaard Møller took the chair. Today, Palle Svejstrup is chairman of Per and Lise Aarsleff's fund.

Since the beginning in 1947, commitment and self-motivation have been characteristic of the employees of Aarsleff. This is still the case, and the growth of the company has not reduced the need for employees of this calibre. Ebbe Malte Iversen says: "A high level of professional competence, overview and an ability to co-operate and make independent decisions are qualifications which we seek and cultivate. In return, our employees enjoy a considerable degree of freedom while we get - we know - great commitment".

Common sense combined with an ability to react constructively to changing, external challenges has been a recurring leitmotif in the long history of the Aarsleff Group. In practice, this means that when evaluating the market the company currently relates to the development of society instead of concentrating, with a know-all attitude, on fields where the needs have already been fulfilled. Here too a straight line can be drawn back to the brown coal period in Jutland, which for Aarsleff became the first chapter of a long and successful company history.

Out of the many events that had a positive influence on the growth of the Aarsleff Group during the last decades of the 20^th century, former chairman of the board Palle Svejstrup emphasises three.

The first one occurred with the oil crisis in the mid-1970s. The Danish power plants were forced rapidly to convert from oil to coal operation. This resulted in large projects within harbour building, for example, for Aarsleff and for the piling division in particular. This division had been established and expanded during the preceding decade on the basis of a great demand for foundation engineering that followed from a rapid increase in concrete building activities. To this demand-motivated market strategy we added specialised activities such as railway electrification, laying of natural gas pipelines and wastewater pipelines as well as No-Dig rehabilitation of underground pipelines. In all three areas, new or further developed techniques were decisive for Aarsleff's competitive power.

The next big event was the stock exchange listing of Per Aarsleff A/S in 1984, which was very successful. This can be seen from quotations clearly reflecting investor confidence in the company. Our involvement in the construction of the two large bridges across the Great Belt and Øresund respectively, where Aarsleff's construction expertise, both on land and at sea, was applied, represents the third decisive event in the recent history of the company.

Closing a ring. From the tough pioneer days in the brown coal fields, Aarsleff has grown into a company capable of participating in international projects that require competent players in all posts. This includes everything from all-round project management to the daily activities at the worksites.