Ferrovial SE

Good afternoon or good morning, depending on where you are, everybody. This is Silvia Ruiz speaking, and I would like to welcome you to Ferrovial's conference call to discuss the financial results for the third quarter of 2024. I am joined here today by your CFO, Ernesto Lopez-Mozo, and by your Corporate Finance Director, Ignacio Del Pino. Just as a reminder, both the results report and the presentation are available on our website since yesterday evening after the U.S. market was closed. At the end of the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. As in previous calls, you will have the opportunity to ask questions live. For that, you will need to join the call through the conference call channel and press star five on your phone keypad. If you prefer, you can send them through the forum, including the webcast, and I will be reading them out loud at the end of the Q&A session. With all this, I will hand over to Ernesto. Ernesto, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Silvia, and hello to everybody. Well, we have another set of strong results this quarter. In the overview, we can see that toll roads continue to benefit from increased mobility in Canada in the 407. The U.S. managed lanes posted solid revenue per transaction growth. Also in airports, we had record-breaking numbers at Heathrow and also strong growth in AGS and Dalaman. Construction had another quarter with profitability improvement. When we look into the whole nine months of 2024, we have a 3.9% EBIT margin. In terms of cash, this has been the first nine months where we have received dividends from infrastructure assets of 190 million euros, and this includes the first dividend from the I-77. Also, we had proceeds from the sale of a 5% stake in IRB, €211 million. And also, we had proceeds from the divestment of the AMI vendor loan, €176 million, and also Cerveo, €40 million. This has been also gone hand-in-hand with investments and shareholder distributions. We were catching up with last year with shareholder distributions, mainly buybacks of €749 million. And also we invested in the IRB Infrastructure Trust, €652 million. And of course, we continue with the development of NTO and investment of equity here was €319 million. I mean, different events that were announced since the first half of the year. One of them is the additional buyback program for a maximum amount of 300 million euros. We have in the first nine months of the year, we have already invested 75 million euros in our treasury shares. So that's on top of the number. that I mentioned before of shareholder distributions. This is treasury stock. In terms of other transactions, we had an agreement to transfer the economic rights of concessions in Europe and Canada to JAB with Interogo Holding. Cash received was 100 million euros, but this was in October. So this number is not in the net debt position of the first nine months. And then lastly, we announced yesterday the second script dividend as per the approval of the shareholder meeting earlier in the year. Okay, we move on to the next slide. We start with the toll roads performance, and we see that the whole division had a strong WD growth in revenue and the BDA. But I would like to highlight the numbers we have in the bubbles that relate to the North American assets. I mean, the U.S. toll roads had revenues and a BDA growing in excess of 20%. And in terms of dividends from North American assets, we had a triple for four hundred and forty four million euros dividends compared to just below four hundred three ninety three in the first nine months of the past year. If we move on to the next slide, please, we move into the into the 407 and the 407 has had a strong quarter in terms of traffic I mean we I mean so increased mobility and commuting and we have to highlight weather effects here and well there was heavy rain in a Much higher number of days than in the past year and also with a heavy downfall and this affected traffic. In terms of the revenues, I would like to have a look at the breakdown that we show on the chart. top right-hand corner. We see good growth in total revenues outpacing other quarters. Also, the fee revenues that were affecting comparison in the past quarters now have a slight growth. That helps. And contract revenue that was reflected in the first months of last year now is not part of the comparison. And that gives a number of growth in total revenue of 16.1% for this quarter. And in terms of dividends, I would like to highlight that the 407 dividends paid in the first half and third quarter of 175 plus 225 million Canadian dollars. And it has approved a dividend for the last quarter of the year of 700 million Canadian dollars. So this is an important growth compared to last year. If we move on to the Dallas Forward Managed Lanes, here we have the solid revenue per transaction growth that I was mentioning at the beginning. In NTE, we have traffic and revenue impacted by the capacity improvement construction works. I mean, this is performing much better than what we expected. expected, but clearly the works are affecting. Whereas in LBJ we have solid traffic growth, even though it's affected by construction works, some of the connections are already improved from the past year, so we are starting to see also a part of the mobility coming back and that shows in the growth of LBJ and in the NT35 West we have traffic growth benefiting from the opening of segment 3C last last year and of course well this out performance means that we're also having some revenue share and in the third quarter the BDA includes 3.4 million dollars of revenue share and this is accrued on a quarterly basis since the second quarter 2024 and therefore for the first nine months of 2024 the number of revenue share is 10.1 million dollars. So we also have at the bottom the dividend distributions at 100% shareholder base of the different assets, and you see the strong performance. As a reference, we have the soft cap update of 3.4%. Usually when you're able to beat that growth is related to mandatory modes that we have in NTE and is the main driver of also the comparison vis-a-vis last year. We have had mandatory modes this quarter, but there were more frequent last year without the ultimate capacity, right? So that affects the comparison, but it's very healthy and strong. If we move to the next one, please, in the I-77, we have a strong revenue growth in terms of the traffic, the performance vis-à-vis the same quarter last year. We have to refer to construction works that were benefiting the 2023 traffic and also this quarter we had impacts from hurricanes Debbie and Helene. I must mention that it has affected negatively and we, I mean, don't comment into the performance after the close of the quarter. But I mean, the situation in North Carolina is that there are different roads closed. and traffic has been diverted to the I-77 and of course this is helping the performance a lot throughout October. I don't give specific numbers but it's just a warning so that you don't extrapolate this performance in September into your October numbers going forward. Of course, the performance of the asset means that we are having revenue share as well. We have $1.2 million in Q3, and when we look into the full nine months of 2024, the revenue share is $3.6 million. I would like to highlight not only the revenue per transaction growth, but also the first dividend distribution at 100%, it was $293 million. When we look into the IC66 on the right side of the slide, we see some stabilization in traffic. Well, part of this is also related to similar effects. I mean, in the Q3 of 2023, still completion works were very intense and that was affecting traffic in the general purpose lanes. helping um traffic in the in the i-60s on the i-66 um and also this year we had impact from hurricanes debbie and helene so um i mean this has been affecting the uh the comparison the renew per transaction uh keeps uh um growing um healthily okay we move to the Next slide. Here we get into the airport's division. And Heathrow, well, you probably have seen the results already with record-breaking passenger numbers. Of course, the comparison to 2023 is affected by the gliding path of the aeronautical tariffs that were set by the CAA, and therefore you have a drop in revenue on passengers. and the BDAB deals affected by higher cost to basically service the high demand of traffic. Okay, if we move off to the next one, in other airports we see a solid growth in the AES with Revenue growing at a high single digit, adjusted the BDA even above 20%. So a strong growth and the different assets, the big one, Glasgow, is driving most of the growth. Southampton is also growing. Aberdeen is more stable. On the right-hand side, we have Dalaman that had the busiest nine months ever recorded. And this growth is also significant. looking strong with 7.4% growth in revenues, international traffic is growing, and really the area is growing as an attractive tourism destination. In fact, the region has been declared a tourism development area, so we should expect more hotels being built and more capacity to attract passengers through the airport. Regarding new Terminal 1, it's on track. Really, the construction is performing really well. It's within budget and schedule. We're also advancing in the negotiation with airlines for the opening, let's say, two years down the road or a little bit more. And here we have nine airlines that have been signed during the first nine, well, until the first nine months of 2024. And, well, the new airlines are mentioned in the slide, EVA Air, Air Serbia. So, yes, and news in terms of equity contribution, they follow the pace of the of the project. Three hundred forty seven million dollars have been injected in the first nine months of two thousand and twenty four. And in the third quarter was one hundred sixty million dollars. The total investment up to September 30th this year is $641 million, the total since the beginning. And we have a pending commitment of $501 million. I mean, in the first half of the year, we had successful issuance of 2.55 billion long-term green PAPs. Okay, we move to the next slide. Construction, a very strong quarter. Basically, I mean, the comparison with last year is very strong because last year we still had impact from closing of big projects. Now we have... a healthy backlog and the margins are up across the board, right? So we have a 7.8% EBIT margin in the first nine months of the year for Budimex, 3.0% in Weber and Ferrabial construction had a good recovery with 1.9% EBIT margin. As I said, the order book is at peak levels. We think it's a healthy backlog and we still are not reflecting 2.3 billion in contracts that are pending financial close or final signing. Okay, so if we move to the P&L, we have the P&L broken down into revenue, EBITDA and EBIT for the first nine months of the year and then for the third quarter. So we see that growth is very strong this quarter and of course for the first nine months even more so. So very solid, strong operational results. If we move on to the net debt graph, here we see, I mean, the main captions were already discussed in the introduction. I mean, we had a strong number of dividends from projects, close to 500 million. It's 490. Construction has some cash drain, I mean, better than last year to this point in time, but, I mean, it's – drain a little bit of cash and then you have other cash flow from other operating activities and taxes. In taxes, the main impacts are from Budimex and also from cash repatriated from Canada that has a 5% withholding tax. and to the right of these cash flow operations we have the investment activities and here we have all the investments that I mentioned before and you also have here the interest received on the cash in hand and the investments. clearly a year where we are focused on investment and shareholder remuneration. In terms of financing activities, as I mentioned, the focus has been shareholder distributions, catching up with last year. We also have other treasury shares acquisition. and then we have cash flow from used in financing activities and here you have repayment of bonds or European commercial paper, you have for instance the dividend in Budimex leakage to minority holders, all these captions that are well described in the note that was published yesterday. Okay, so good cash performance in the different captions with a strong focus on investment and shareholder remuneration. Just to close the presentation before getting into the Q&A, I mean, really strong performance across the board in infrastructure assets, construction profitability clearly improving, and I mean, No, I mean, we have to remember you have the 3.5% guidance that we provided for this year. We are there clearly. Then we have growth investments combined with shareholders distribution that I mentioned and a sizable pipeline ahead. So pipeline is accelerating. Okay, so thanks for bearing with us and we open the floor for the Q&A session.

Thank you, Ernesto. The Q&A sessions will start shortly. Please, operator, just go ahead.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the Q&A session. If you'd like to ask the question, please press star five on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star five again. Please ensure that your device is unmuted locally before proceeding with your question. Our first question comes from the line of Grant Hunt from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you very much. Just two from me. So you speak to there's a good pipeline of opportunities in express lanes in the U.S. in your statement. Just wondering how do you put yourself in the best position to compete for these assets? Obviously a disappointing result, I think, in Atlanta in the quarter, but Going forward, is it just a case of price or are there other levers that you can pull to give yourself the best opportunity versus your competitors? And then second question, if competition is increasing for these express lanes, how are you thinking about other investment opportunities? We're seeing more and more activity in European data centers, for example. Would that be an area that Ferrovial would consider investing in? Thanks.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Graham. So, well, basically, those are excellent questions. I mean, we will compete with the tools that help us. And one of them is is designed, for instance, in the one we lost. We had a. a better design according to the grantor in terms of points. And then, of course, we will look with financial discipline for all the angles with all the information we have. The fact that the pipeline is augmented gives us a fair chance of winning a new business. In terms of other alternatives for investments, yes, we keep looking at things across all our divisions. Interpro is looking more for bespoke opportunities. Energy is looking for things more as a developer, so not really investments. I mean, thinking of big investment tickets, but a good development activity. And other things that you mentioned, well, could come natural given our capabilities, but it's not something where we expect important tickets at this point in time, right? So, yes, if we are building data centers, there could be an opportunity to be part of a value chain, but that's all we can comment at this point in time. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. My first question is on the NTE. I was wondering how long do you think that traffic is going to continue to be impacted by the capacity improvement construction work? My second question is on the Schedule 22 of the 407, and particularly about the provisions that I think you'll start taking in 2025. So could you give us a bit more color on when you will really start taking it and announce it and if you have any preliminary estimates? And my third question is on the U.S. line in terms of the U.S. equity line. Do you have any plans to boost the liquidity on the listing there to get into the U.S. indices? Thank you.

Thanks, Elodie. So Ignacio will take the first one regarding NT ultimate capacity, and I will take Schedule 22 on the U.S. line.

Perfect. Thank you, Elodie. On NT, the construction works are expected to go through early 2027. So up until that point is when you should expect construction impacts.

Okay, regarding Schedule 22, we will start accruing Schedule 22 in the first quarter results of 2025. They won't follow an even pattern, so the provision will tend to be more concentrated. in Q2 and Q3 that are the ones that have more traffic related to the busiest hours in terms of business days. That is what marks the Schedule 22. And we will be... Updating as results go by, that's our intention at the moment. Then regarding the third question, the US line, we are basically doing the usual stuff that comes with it. education, more presence in the U.S. with investors, so it's building up awareness and that's the plan for the moment. As you rightly said, indices require a decent level of liquidity going forward, but you have to start as we are starting now, right? So the plan is education and more broad awareness with U.S. investors for the time being.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Augustan Sender from Stiefel. Please go ahead.

Yes, hello, and thank you for taking my questions. I've got a couple, but my first one is on your creation of the JV with Enterogo Holding. I was wondering what the strategic rationale was for the creation of this JV. Is this part of your strategy to move your focus towards North America, moving away from European assets? Any explanation would be appreciated. In terms of your traffic on the I-66 and I-77, I was wondering if you could quantify the traffic impact of weather and how much is due to other effects. And finally, it's probably more of a technical question, but I noticed that Weber and Ferrovial Construction figures looked a bit different than before, as if some activities were transferred from Ferrovial Construction to Weber. So I was wondering what changed in terms of the reporting. Thank you.

Yeah, hi, thanks. Okay, so I will take the first question, Ignacio the second, and probably I'll take the third. It depends on how it flows. Okay, so basically, the creation of the EJV with Interogo, we rotate assets, and I mean, these... assets basically are mature, most of them are availabilities, and we thought it was the right time to rotate them. And it also provides, let's say, a venue for more of this type of rotation going forward. So basically it's the last of the availabilities we had in Europe, right? That was the reason for the rotation of assets.

I-66 and I-77, as you rightfully pointed out, where there was an adverse effect in Q3 in both assets, but unfortunately we cannot provide an indication of the size of that impact.

Okay, regarding the part from construction to move to Weber, I mean we will come with some detail, it's not material, it's likely related to energy efficiency business, but we'll come back to you with more details, it's not material.

Our next question comes from the line of Gregor Kuklic from UBS. Please go ahead.

Oh, hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Can I push maybe a little bit more on the sort of I-66 and I-77? I guess I'm interested, perhaps if you take out, I guess, the month of September, how traffic would have looked just sort of July and August to get a sense, I guess, of the underlying, I guess, Perhaps you don't want to quantify, but just give us an idea. And then on the I-66, which really saw sort of pretty noticeable slowdown in transaction growth, would you say that that basically reflects the fact that that asset is now give or take ramped up, or do you still expect more of a ramp up from here? Then moving on to capital returns. So you've done a lot this year and obviously announced a buyback in the summer. So can you just remind us sort of summing up all the different bits? I think some of it is catch up from last year. Some of it is obviously this year's dividend, which you're partly paying out in script, some in cash. And then the additional diva, can you just summarize for us what sort of basically carry over and what is sort of, I guess, additional? And then maybe a final question on the new tenders, appreciating that they're all sort of early days, but Can you perhaps put an envelope, I don't know, CapEx or equity around the various projects in combination so you don't throw your hand perhaps for each individual asset? I appreciate that. But sort of to give us an idea how big these are. Thank you.

Okay, thanks. Well, that's a lot of questions. I don't know if I was able to write them all down. So we are going to be asking probably for you to re-ask some of the questions that we missed. Okay, so the first on I-66 Ignacio will take. I will look into the second one.

Yeah, you were asking about whether we can split performance within Q3 in both I-66 and I-77, taking out September, so July and August. And unfortunately, that's not a point we will provide. Okay. On your second question, which was about the slowdown in traffic growth and I-66 and whether we should read this as the end of ramp up, As we've pointed out, the Q through standalone figure is impacted by a negative comparison on construction works in the previous year and adverse weather. So it would be early to conclude that this is the end of ramp up. Okay, thank you.

Okay, so I will take The one on – okay, so there's two more to go, right? And one of them is what can we take as remuneration from last year that we were catching up? And then about the others, right? Catching up this year is an amount of 270 million euros, if you want to look at it that way. The rest is this year remuneration, right? And then Regarding the size of the pending projects, well, for commercial reasons, I won't enter into that. I mean, grantors will probably come out with some CapEx figures going forward, but at this point in time, we won't be commenting. Thanks for bearing with us.

Next question comes from the line of Martin Beuter from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to ask you about capital allocation again. At the time of your Capital Markets Day in early 2024, you indicated that one of the scenarios could be the possibility of a special dividend supported by proceeds from disposals. What is your latest thinking on that scenario, and when do you think you will make a decision?

Thanks, Marcin. So, yeah, I mean, we are basically looking at that. As we mentioned, the capital markets, they probably would see a combination of investment, remuneration, buybacks. I mean, the... conference call for the full year results in February 2025 probably is the right time to address this to the market, right? So, I mean, please bear with us.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Satish Sivakumar from Citi. Please go ahead.

Thanks. I've got two questions here. Firstly, on the NTO, and the second is around the construction segment. So on the NTO, you mentioned that you have signed long-term agreements with nine airlines. Can you comment on what is the arrangement in terms of volume versus price, and what does it the current agreement that the airlines meant in terms of how much of capacity you kind of contracted it out right now. And then the second is around the construction segment. And you do say that you focus more on the local markets and lower weight of large design. So basically, does it imply your average contract size and the time period of projects that you do? as kind of reduced versus what it used to be? If so, what is the average contract size and duration right now? Yeah, thank you.

Okay well I will take the question regarding NTO and well basically the only thing we can disclose there is that we are now above the 30% revenues for traffic for 2027. And, well, that's all I can comment now. I mean, we don't disclose volume and price references. Regarding the construction segment, okay, Ignacio can take this one.

Yeah, on the construction segment, as you pointed out, there's a lower weighting of design and build contracts. It is true that these are typically longer in length and larger in volume. But unfortunately, we can't provide any visibility on how the average contract size has moved.

And going forward, would you like, by design... actually push for lower like size value and lower shorter duration contracts or just to get a sense like what is the upside here in terms of margin I

Okay, I mean, going forward, I mean, the focus, as we've mentioned, is in projects where we can, I mean, help win infrastructure that creates value, right? And, I mean, those usually have a higher size, but, I mean, the pipeline probably will – take a little bit of time to materialize, right? And in the short term, yes, there could be some big projects we think are interesting and good in the terms of our capabilities. And here, if it's not for an infrastructure problem, sister company basically will take all the cabbies regarding risk management and margin, right? So there's not a specific vision on size. Of course, on average, we should be moving more around the sizes that we were discussing now that are lower. But as I said, we are open to bigger projects if it makes sense. And in particular, if it's for our infrastructure companies. Okay, got it. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, please be reminded that if you wish to ask a question, you may press star five on your telephone keypad. And our next question comes from the line of Nicolo Pessina from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.

Yeah, it's good afternoon, everyone. I have a couple of questions on the 407 ETR. It seems like the focus was more on pricing in the third quarter rather than on traffic, differently from the second quarter. I wonder if this approach is my reading is correct. And still, the evolution of the average revenue per transaction seems to be lower than the tariff increase that was implemented in February. I understand that the tariff increase was only for eight months. That applies only to total revenues and not to total revenues. But still, it seems like there is a 200 to 300 business points difference. So I'm wondering if you can explain the reason behind this gap. And finally, still on the 407 ETR pricing, if you have a strategy for next year when Schedule 22 comes, calculations will become relevant if you intend to introduce aggressively promotion discounts in order to stimulate traffic and minimize the scheduled 23 payments. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks. Well, regarding pricing, as we have mentioned in the past, and I think that the slide with the breakdown of revenues shows, comparison is affected not only by that one month that we were mentioning, but also you look at the contract price. um, revenues that basically were present last year and affect the growth. But, uh, more importantly, there's some, um, fees like, um, transponder, uh, fees, crypto charges that they had zero increase, uh, this year. Right. And, and that basically that dilutes the effect, but that doesn't mean that we cannot, uh, erase this, um, anytime. Right. So, uh, Just bear that in mind. A percentage of the revenues didn't have any increase in price, toll per kilometer did. That's how you see that that has affected. The performance is very strong. As I said, there's no reason to think that that cannot change going forward and you could increase the different parameters that go into the revenues. Regarding the next year strategy, I mean, we are not to disclose that now, but of course, the different loyalty activities and schemes that have been tested this year would play an important role next year. The reaction from clients has been tremendous. and yet we expect that to be more present, right? So we cannot provide any information regarding next year, but yes, logically that will play a more important role. And I don't know if I missed part of the questions. No, it's all clear. Thanks a lot. Thank you. I would take the opportunity also to complete the question from Augustine regarding the transfer of business between Weber and Ferrovial Construction that really it was Ferrovial Construction the part in the U.S. that is embedded in the, of course, in the Ferrovial Construction CAPEX, right? So the water business in Weber that was previously 50% Weber, 50% in proverbial construction, the U.S. part, has been transferred and basically this doesn't impact EBIT margins at all. I mean, it's not really changing anything material either and basically it aligns with the margins in Weber.

A next question comes from the line of Augustan Sander from Stephen. Please go ahead.

Yes, hello. I've got one remaining question on your Ferrovial construction business. I was wondering how you expect your activity to evolve going forward in context of your lower order book. I see it's down 10% year on year. And I was wondering if you could comment probably on the timing of this current order book in terms of the projects you see in your pipeline. Thank you.

Okay, so basically, I mean, you need to look to the construction business as a whole, but you're mentioning that this ferrovial construction, I mean, the drop in backlog is because basically the big projects in the U.S. that we mentioned throughout the past years are done, right? And that basically has brought down the backlog. And here, yes, I mean, opportunities could come with sister companies, as I mentioned before. I mean, we shouldn't be taking a read on any specific plans for this area because it also includes other countries, right? So, no, I mean, the order book remains high overall, and there's no specific plan to recover this one. I mean, we should look at it as a whole.

Thank you.

There are no further questions from the conference call at this time. So I'll have the conference back to you. Thank you.

Thank you for that. So I will start reading. There are a couple of questions through the webcast, so I will start reading them. First set of questions come from Patrick Rosette from Goldman Sachs. First question, how do you assess the 407 ETR pricing power for 2025-2026 relative to the price increase in 2024?

Thank you. As we've stated multiple times up until now, the value provided to users by 407 ETR remains very strong. and the price elasticity to this year's increase has been below our expectations. So we remain optimistic about the medium and long-term potential of the asset. Having said that, we cannot provide any guidance on future toll rate increases.

Next question from Patrick. Could you please share your thoughts on the risk from A, plans to tunnel highway below Highway 401 in Toronto and B, a potential buyback of the 407 ETR by the grantor.

Well, regarding the last one, a potential buyback of the frozen by the Grand Tour, I mean, we have had no contact, no indication. I mean, there's nothing to comment on our side. And regarding the tunnel, it's the same. I mean, it's early days, comments on the news, but nothing is too early to comment on any of these initiatives. We have to wait to see if anything has any prospects.

And last question from Patrick. You've increased shareholder distributions this year. Do you see scope for a more formalized distribution policy going forward linked, for example, to annual distributions from the underlying infra-assets?

Thanks, Patrick. Probably I'll defer you again to the same way I reflected to the full year conference call to have more color in distribution policy. So, I mean, please bear with us.

And the last question that we have in the webcast comes from Alvaro Navarro from Westinburg. About dividends received from managed lanes, could you forecast total dividends in 2024 to surpass €500 million? If you cannot answer this, please, could you give some guidance for this year and 2025?

I'm sorry, Albert, we don't provide any guidance on this topic.

Okay, it seems there are no further questions. Thank you very much.

Thanks a lot, and thank you for attending the conference call. We'll shoot you in the short term. Thank you. Bye-bye.