The construction company ACS obtained net attributable profit of 668 million euros during the past financial year thanks to the increase in its stake in its German subsidiary Hochtief and the recovery of traffic at Abertis. The figure represents an increase of 66% compared to the previous year, after eliminating the contribution of the industrial services activity sold to Vinci had in December 2021.
That year, the company led by Florentino Pérez had a net profit of 3,045 million euros from the income derived from that sale valued at 5,500 million euros, closed in December 2021, so in this comparison the drop in profit is 78%. , although by extraordinary.
Excluding this effect, the profit that year would have been 720 million, which would mean that the profits for 2022 would have fallen by 7.2%, after divesting from its industrial business. In this way, taking into account the same perimeter of the construction, services and concessions businesses in both years, profit has increased by 66% in the last year.
This improvement was contributed to by the 21% increase in turnover, which amounted to 33,615 million euros, as well as the 9% increase in gross operating profit (Ebitda), which was 1,747 million euros. Its three main businesses experienced a positive evolution, supported by the 28.3% increase in net profit in the Construction area, 16.1% in Concessions and 5% in the Services segment, according to Europa Press.
The contribution of its investee Abertis stood out, thanks to the consolidation of the traffic growth trend, which allowed the ACS group to contribute up to 143 million euros, 26 million more than the previous period. The result also includes a positive impact due to the variation in the fair value of the hedging instruments linked to the ACS share for a value of 56 million euros and the revaluation of the ‘earn-out’ for the sale of Industrial Services (65 million euros ), but also provisions of 67 million euros.
The portfolio grows 8.3%
At the end of the period, the backlog stood at 68,996 million euros, growing by 8.3%, mainly concentrated in North America (53%) and followed by Asia Pacific (28%), Spain (9%), the rest of Europe (9%) and South America (1%).
On the financial front, ACS presented a net cash position of 224 million euros at the end of 2022, supported by a cash generation of 1,300 million. Net cash fell by 1,785 million, notably after the investment in strategic operations such as the takeover bid for 21.4% of Cimic by Hochtief and the acquisition of an additional 15.1% in Hochtief by ACS.
Total shareholder remuneration amounted to a total of 1,057 million euros, of which 531 million euros corresponded to the scrip dividend paid by ACS to its shareholders, 431 million to the extraction of own shares and 95 million euros to payment of dividends to minority interests, mainly from Hochtief.
