Bladt Names Offshore Wind Specialist as Its New CEO

Danish offshore construction company Bladt has appointed Anders Søe-Jensen, the former head of both Vestas Offshore Wind and GE Offshore Wind, as its new CEO.

He will be succeeding Klaus Steen Mortensen who has decided to step down due to a chronic but not a life-threatening heart condition. Mortensen has been in charge of the company specializing in the construction of steel structures for offshore renewables and oil and gas industry for almost three years.

Mortensen said: "My prime focus has been on creating a far more efficient, predictable and stable company that can compete without subsidies. We have achieved those aims with great success."

Mortensen will now concentrate on working on the Board of Directors and spending more time with his family.

“Bladt Industries is a fantastic company with enormous potential that I am looking forward to unleashing – in close cooperation with my new colleagues, business partners, and not least Bladt’s many Danish and international customers,” says Anders Søe-Jensen, the new CEO.

For the year 2019, Bladt reported a loss of DKK 42 million after-tax as a result of a DKK 85 million technical write-down concerning a pending arbitration case.

Excluding one-off costs relating to the pending arbitration case, the gross result totaled DKK 86 million. 

Revenue at Bladt Industries rose by 49% thanks to a range of activities despite the negative effect from the postponement of the Vesterhav Nord and Vesterhav Syd offshore wind farms. 

"Aside from the write-down, we are very satisfied with the results achieved by Bladt’s core business. Our healthy and customer-focused company is developing in the right direction,” Mortensen said.

As a consequence of the reduced book equity caused by the write-down, in 2019, Bladt’s owners chose to invest and inject DKK 150m of additional equity to bolster the company and support its continued growth plans.

“We are very pleased that our owners demonstrated such great faith in us in 2019 by increasing their investments in Bladt. That reinforces our robustness and shows that our owners have full confidence in the company. It also ensures that we can continue developing Bladt in an offshore wind power market with expected annual growth rates of more than 20% for as far as the eye can see,” said Mortensen.