Securitas Q2: Margin Ticks Up to 7.6% as Europe’s Contract Clean-Up Is Declared Done — and Portugal Sits Inside the Machine That’s Working

Stockholm-listed Securitas AB, the world’s second-largest private security group and one of Sweden’s largest employers in Portugal, published its second-quarter 2026 interim report on Friday morning. Total sales came in at MSEK 37,843 against MSEK 38,564 a year earlier, with headline organic sales growth flat — but adjusted organic sales growth of 3 percent once the wind-down of the SCIS government business in the United States is stripped out. Operating income before amortization rose to MSEK 2,824 from MSEK 2,798, and the adjusted operating margin improved to 7.6 percent from 7.5 percent.

Earnings per share climbed to SEK 2.88 from SEK 2.56 — a 12.5 percent increase — and for the first six months EPS rose 11 percent. President and CEO Magnus Ahlqvist, presenting the report alongside CFO Matteo Dall’Ora, attributed the margin progress to both the technology and solutions and the security services business lines.

The line that matters: European pruning is finished

For corridor readers, the most consequential sentence in the report concerns Europe. Securitas confirmed that, as of the second quarter of 2026, it has completed the portfolio management actions related to underperforming contracts in Europe — the deliberate walking-away from low-margin guarding work that has been dampening European organic growth figures for several quarters. Active portfolio management “had a hampering effect on organic sales growth in Europe,” the report notes, while North America grew on the back of both the Guarding and Technology business units. Going forward, portfolio optimization continues only as part of normal operations, with a sustained focus on contract profitability.

In plain terms: the European book has been cleaned, and what remains is the base Securitas intends to grow from — with technology and solutions doing progressively more of the lifting. That is the operating environment in which the group’s Portuguese business now works.

The Portugal position

Securitas has operated in Portugal since 1966 and employs approximately 4,500 people in the country, run from Linda-a-Velha outside Lisbon as part of the group’s Ibero-American organization — a 48,000-person division spanning Spain, Portugal and six Latin American markets, in which Portugal accounts for roughly 10 percent of sales. The Portuguese operation covers on-site guarding, mobile surveillance, 24/7 monitoring, fire and safety, and the electronic-security capabilities that came with the Stanley Security acquisition — precisely the guarding-to-technology mix the group’s strategy now rewards.

The strategic frame was set earlier this year when Securitas presented its 2030 ambition to be “the trusted partner in intelligence-led security” — a pivot from posting guards to selling integrated protective intelligence. For a market like Portugal, where Securitas guards industrial sites, data centres, retail networks and public institutions, the pivot means the local business is increasingly a distribution channel for group technology — and the country’s data-centre construction wave, from Sines to Viana do Castelo, is exactly the kind of high-specification client base the new strategy targets.

A Swedish quarter with an Iberian echo

The report also closes out a striking stretch for Swedish-listed security in Iberia. Verisure — the alarms group whose Iberian operation is substantially run from Portugal — listed on Nasdaq Stockholm earlier this year in Europe’s biggest IPO of 2026, and reports its own second quarter on July 30. Between Securitas’ 4,500 Portuguese employees and Verisure’s Portugal-based Iberian engine, Swedish-controlled security is one of the largest Nordic employment footprints in the country — larger than most manufacturing investments the corridor celebrates, and growing on the back of recurring-revenue models rather than one-off capex.

For the first half, Securitas reported sales of MSEK 74,054, an adjusted operating margin of 7.3 percent against 7.1 percent, and items affecting comparability of positive MSEK 138 — of which MSEK 213 related to divestitures. The SCIS close-down remains on track to conclude by year-end.

What to watch next. Verisure’s Q2 lands on July 30, in the same week as Portugal’s own H1 heavyweights — Jerónimo Martins and Corticeira Amorim on July 29. For the full Securitas Portugal picture, see the company profile in our directory.