[Obayashi] Overseas Construction — Orders Reach ¥1.2tn

Note: This article is a factual summary based on Obayashi Corporation’s published IR material (Investors’ Guide, June 2026 edition). It is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Figures are as of the publication of the source material. Investment decisions are your own responsibility.

Overseas construction is Obayashi’s second-largest segment by sales — bigger than real estate development, green energy, and new business domains combined — but its thinnest-margin core business. It supplies about a third of group sales (32.7%) but only 13.7% of group operating profit (see Company Overview). In FY2025 the segment posted consolidated net sales of ¥843.9bn and operating profit of ¥26.7bn, a 3.2% margin well below the 9%-plus margins earned domestically (9.1% for domestic building, 9.6% for domestic civil engineering). That gap between scale and profitability is the central fact to hold onto when reading this page: overseas construction adds meaningfully to Obayashi’s global footprint and order book, but it is not yet the group’s earnings engine. This article covers the segment’s FY2025 results, its regional mix, and the demand drivers Obayashi cites for North America and Asia; the two regions each get their own deep-dive article, on North America and Asia.

FY2025 results: building vs. civil engineering

Overseas construction splits into building and civil engineering, just like the domestic business covered in our domestic building and domestic civil engineering articles. The table below sets consolidated totals alongside the two business lines.

Metric	Consolidated total	Building	Civil engineering
Net sales	¥843.9bn	¥507.9bn	¥336.0bn
Orders received	¥1,204.6bn	¥788.1bn	¥416.5bn
Operating profit	¥26.7bn	¥11.9bn	¥14.7bn
Operating margin	3.2%	2.4%	4.4%

Two things stand out. First, orders received (¥1,204.6bn) ran well ahead of net sales (¥843.9bn), an even wider gap than in the domestic civil engineering business (see Domestic Civil Engineering), pointing to a substantial order backlog that should support future-year sales. Second, civil engineering earned a higher margin than building overseas (4.4% versus 2.4%) — the same ordering seen domestically, where civil engineering’s 9.6% margin also topped building’s 9.1%. Overseas building’s 2.4% margin is markedly thinner than either of the domestic construction margins discussed in this guide.

North America vs. Asia: the regional mix

Obayashi discloses consolidated overseas net sales by region for the past four fiscal years.

Region	FY2022	FY2023	FY2024	FY2025
North America	61.3%	66.5%	70.4%	66.5%
Asia	37.4%	32.3%	28.4%	31.9%
Others	1.3%	1.2%	1.2%	1.6%

North America has consistently been the larger of the two regions, though its share peaked at 70.4% in FY2024 before easing back to 66.5% in FY2025 as Asia’s share recovered from 28.4% to 31.9%. The small ‘Others’ category has stayed in a narrow 1.2%-1.6% band across all four years. Obayashi notes that these regional figures include some net sales from businesses other than the overseas construction business, so they are best read as directional rather than an exact segment split. Our North America article covers the group companies and acquisition history behind that region’s figures in detail.

What’s driving demand

Obayashi lays out separate demand drivers for building and civil engineering in each region, and the picture is broadly constructive across both.

• North America, building: capital investment among private real estate developers, which had stagnated due to interest rate policies and other factors, is showing signs of improvement; investment demand remains steady in areas such as semiconductors, data centers, public education, and private-sector facilities.
• Asia, building: capital investment is expected to remain firm across countries.
• North America, civil engineering: public infrastructure-related construction investment is expected to remain firm, with a steady increase in investment in water treatment facilities.
• Asia, civil engineering: construction investment is expected to remain firm, especially in the energy and transportation infrastructure sectors.

Semiconductors and data centers stand out as a shared theme: they appear explicitly as a North American building demand driver here, and the same theme reappears in the group company table in our North America article, where the group’s newest subsidiary specializes in exactly that kind of work.

Major projects

Obayashi highlights four overseas projects completed by group companies across both regions.

• Genesis Marina (U.S.), constructed by Webcor
• MnDOT Stone Arch Bridge (U.S.), constructed by Kraemer
• Bird Paradise (Singapore), constructed by Obayashi Singapore
• Jamuna Railway Bridge, Eastern Part of Civil Works Package WD-1 (Bangladesh)

These four projects span both regions and both business lines: a marina and a historic stone-arch bridge in the United States, an attraction project in Singapore, and a railway bridge in Bangladesh, and they involve four different Obayashi group companies. For the group companies and growth history behind the North America numbers, see our North America article; for Asia, see Asia.

This article is part of our complete breakdown of the Obayashi Investors’ Guide 2026. See the hub article for the full series.

Note: This article is a factual summary based on Obayashi Corporation’s published IR material (Investors’ Guide, June 2026 edition). It is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Figures are as of the publication of the source material. Investment decisions are your own responsibility.