2008 got off to a successful start for HOCHTIEF. At the end of the first quarter, we are able to report a strong set of results.
HOCHTIEF's performance in the first three months shows once again that our chosen path is the right one. With great success, the HOCHTIEF Group has developed and expanded precisely those business segments that enable us to cover the entire life cycle of infrastructure projects, real estate and facilities through our four modules – thereby giving HOCHTIEF an ever greater competitive advantage.In our development module, our position has been significantly bolstered by last year's acquisition of a 50 percent stake in aurelis Real Estate. Just a short time after the acquisition, our expertise is already allowing us to substantially enhance the real estate portfolio. On the project development front, we are currently working hard to tap the promising market segment for nursing care facilities, where HOCHTIEF Projektentwicklung chalked up several project wins in the first quarter.
We also bring good news from our construction module: In the USA, we remain on a growth path. Large projects in our areas of expertise, including healthcare and sports facilities, are an illustration of Turner's success. Our business continues to be unaffected by the subprime crisis. Turner is a market leader in segments less sensitive to economic conditions, and residential construction plays no role at all for the company.
Flatiron, the civil engineering company acquired by HOCHTIEF in 2007, is also operating very successfully. It was awarded some attractive contracts in the first quarter, including one for a road construction project in San Diego.
Our construction activities in Europe also performed well. In particular, new contracts in Sweden, Bulgaria and the UK further bolstered our strong infrastructure and civil engineering business in the first quarter. In Germany, we completed the organizational restructuring of our building construction activities. In addition, we significantly tightened the criteria regarding the margins on new contracts and, in particular, the fair distribution of risks among the parties to those contracts. I am confident that, on this basis, we will put our building construction business in Germany back on track for sustained profitability. With this aim in mind, we will also follow through on plans to reduce the volume of business we undertake as a general contractor.
In our services module, we continue to pursue our growth strategy at HOCHTIEF Facility Management. We are established in the market as a fair outsourcing partner for large clients and, on the back of this, secured the contract for facility management at the German site of pharmaceutical group Abbott in the period under review. The first quarter also saw us enter the Swiss market with a project in Basel. We have extended our facility management offering and at the start of the year established HOCHTIEF Energy Management. HOCHTIEF's experts ensure that energy systems are fully optimized, refurbished, financed and, where necessary, also operated. By improving the efficiency of these installations, we actively help reduce operating costs and CO2 emissions.
In the concessions and operation module, we have continued to strengthen our position. We are particularly pleased to have received the German federal government's first public-private partnership project in the public buildings segment, involving the Fürst Wrede barracks. Once again, we will benefit from the links within our Group, as HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions will be supported on this project by HOCHTIEF Facility Management and HOCHTIEF Construction. Back in 2007, HOCHTIEF won a national ideas competition, proving that by providing economically viable solutions in this segment and injecting private capital and
