The president of ACS, Florentino Pérez, has assured at the company’s shareholders’ meeting, held today in Madrid, that the group “has not even dreamed of” moving the company’s headquarters outside of Spain, as Ferrovial will do , despite the fact that its presence in the United States is much greater.
“It has not crossed our minds. It is not that we criticize it. We have not commented on it,” he stated in response to a question from a shareholder about Ferrovial’s decision, which will move to the Netherlands to be listed in the United States. ACS, which last year was awarded projects worth 39,000 million euros and has a record portfolio of 69,000 million, has the United States as its main market, with 56% of revenues, compared to 19% in Australia and 9% from Spain.
Pérez has also alluded to the legal battle between ACS and Iberdrola over the ‘Villarejo case’, in which both companies have crossed complaints. “The best thing is to ignore it, each one is the owner of their behavior and people know it and know it,” he has limited himself to saying.
It has also explained to the shareholders that the group’s intention is not to distribute extraordinary dividends, but to promote “the concession strategy and the simplification of the group”. “It’s better than an extraordinary dividend. Investing is always good. Many punish companies that have no ideas about the future and our goal is to invest as much as we can to be more profitable.”
ACS, he explained, will take advantage of the new infrastructure opportunities and its healthy financial position after the sale of its industrial business to the French company Vinci to diversify towards 5G data centers, electric car battery factories and biopharmaceutical infrastructures.
In addition to reinforcing the perimeter, ACS has dedicated itself to reducing debt, to the point that at the end of 2022 it had a positive cash flow of 224 million euros. This position allows you to continue raising the dividend. “We can maintain our commitment to shareholder remuneration” and, “with the current data, we expect to be able to increase the dividend in the coming years,” Pérez said. At today’s meeting, the payment of 2 euros per share is approved.
Pérez estimated at 3,300 million euros the investments made in “strategic corporate operations” with the close to 4,800 million euros received from Vinci by the Cobra industrial division. ACS has already used 70% of the resources and “will continue to invest to more than meet the strategic objectives”.
Apart from the areas of interest, the strategy now involves concessions, much more profitable than turnkey construction, and what ACS calls the “simplification of the group”. It refers to the more than 1,500 million euros dedicated to the purchase of the entire Australian subsidiary Cimic and an additional 15.1% in the German Hochtief, in which it already has close to 70% and which it has turned into spearhead at Abertis and in the United States, through Turner.
“The prospects for the coming years are based on the global positioning of the ACS Group, the starting point for leading the transition of the sector towards a more complex, more sustainable, more competitive world”, assured the president of the company before the shareholders who have attended the meeting, which between present and represented are equivalent to 56.18% of the capital.
Of the new businesses, Pérez estimated the value of the world market for 5G data centers at 111,000 million dollars in 2027, as well as 853,000 million that related to biopharmaceutical infrastructures.
In his first speech on the board as CEO of both ACS and Hochtief, Juan SantamarÃa highlighted the potential of data centers and estimated the group’s project portfolio in this area at 4,000 million euros. In the United States he has about 40 running, in which he works with the main ‘big tech’ companies in the country.
The strategy, SantamarÃa indicated, will also go through “the continuous reduction of the portfolio’s risk profile”, the “reinforcement of engineering knowledge”, the “allocation of capital resources to support the simplification of the group” and “the effort in the area of ​​environment and sustainability”.
Less than a month ago, he recalled, the group obtained 100% of the concession for the US highway SH-288, “one of the longest in North America with expiration within 45 years.”
The board has met to, among other things, re-elect Florentino Pérez as executive director and to appoint two new members, Lourdes Máiz Carro and Lourdes Fraguas Gadea, who replace Miquel Roca i Junyent and Antonio GarcÃa Ferrer, who had been at the company for twenty years. the governing body.
