The construction company led by Florentino Pérez, ACS, has announced that it is negotiating with Abertis for the sale of its SH-288 toll road, located in Texas (United States). Its valuation exceeds 2,000 million euros, according to the latest purchase operation of 12.11% carried out by ACS for 250 million euros.
This has been confirmed by the CEO of ACS, Juan Santamaría, in a conference with analysts collected by Europa Press on the occasion of the presentation of the results for 2022, the year in which he obtained a profit of 668 million euros, which represents a 66% increase compared to the previous year, after eliminating the contribution that the industrial services activity sold to Vinci had in December 2021.
Santamaría has advanced that Abertis, a Spanish highway company, participated at 50% minus one share for ACS, is already evaluating the operation and will reach its conclusions shortly. The manager has defended that the last increase in the rates in this way to 20% will directly influence the valuation of the asset, which will also be revalued due to other issues such as the conservative assumptions that ACS made regarding the taxes to be paid and will ultimately be lower.
defends the value of the highway
Likewise, it has defended the value of that highway, which from 2035 will exponentially multiply its performance, given that the entire Texan area is having a behavior that exceeds the average for the US market. ACS currently controls 78% of the SH-288, a road used daily by more than 160,000 vehicles, of which approximately 14,000 choose to use the new transport lanes.
Regarding its relationship with Atlantia, the Italian company that holds the rest, ACS’s CEO has also provided some forecasts for this year, in which he expects to increase profits between 5% and 10% and maintain profit at 50%. ‘pay out’ of the 2023 dividend.
