Silvia Ruiz
Management
Good afternoon, 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 First Quarter of 2025. I'm joined here today by your CFO, Ernesto López Mozo. Just as a reminder, both the results report and the presentation are available on the 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. [Operator Instructions]. With all this, I will hand over to Ernesto. Ernesto, the floor is yours. Ernesto López Mozo: Thank you, Silvia, and welcome everybody to the first quarter of 2025 operating results update from Ferrovial. Starting with the growth in all business divisions, I would like to highlight the strong revenue performance in highways of the North American assets. In terms of airports, we highlight that construction advances in NTO. And in construction, we have shown a steady profitability with adjusted EBIT margin reaching 3.3%. At the end of the quarter, we have solid net debt ex-infra projects, really a net cash position of €1.9 billion, and the main items in this number are the divestment of AGS of €538 million, and on the other hand, equity injections in NTO for €152 million, and the buyback program where we invested €156 million. In terms of corporate events, this quarter, in March, we announced an agreement to acquire up to a 5.06% stake in the 407 ETR from AtkinsRéalis for a maximum of CAD2.09 billion and the close of this transaction is expected in the second quarter of 2025. In April, we announced the opening of Silvertown Tunnel. This is a highly complex infrastructure project that is expected to really enhance transportation in East London. If we move on to the performance in highways, we see that the division has significant growth driven, of course, by the U.S. managed lanes. In the revenue growth of 14.1%, we have the influence of the U.S. highways revenue that grew 19.1% versus the first quarter of 2024. It's making up close to 98% of the highways revenue. In terms of adjusted EBITDA, the U.S. highways represent 98% and they were growing at 14.6%. Let's move now into each asset summary, starting with the 407 ETR. The 407 ETR had an outstanding performance with double EBITDA growth. Here, I would like to highlight several items, starting with the toll revenue that grew 23.6%. Here, we need to bear in mind that the tolls were raised before the beginning of the year. So we had January with the new toll rates, whereas in 2024, we didn't have this effect, right? So January has a favorable comparison vis-à-vis 2024. Then in February, we have the effect of that comparison. In March, what we have is that we launched some promotions that affected the March performance. These traffic promotions help also to steer traffic and really favoring our consumers in the peak hours that is when it's most needed. So March has traffic promotions and this affected the traffic performance. If we look into the breakdown of the monthly traffic, we need to bear in mind that there was substantially worse weather in the first quarter of 2025 than in the first quarter of 2024 that had mild weather. And also, we had a leap year with the extra day in February, right? So this comparison has to bear that in mind, so the performance in terms of traffic is outstanding. In terms of the revenue, of course, the weight of the revenues is in toll revenues, but in fee revenues, we see a higher growth. And here, we have to remind you that in 2024, some of the account fees remained unchanged. There has been an update in 2025 that brings this additional growth and also, other activity has been influencing the higher fee revenue as we described in the slide. So, a very strong underlying performance. Please bear in mind what I mentioned that March is the month that will be more business as usual in the coming months because of these of this comparison I mentioned. Regarding dividend distribution, I mean, we didn't receive any dividends in the first quarter of the 407, but a CAD200 million dividend was approved and was paid in the second quarter. So we already have that cash in the second quarter. In terms of the Schedule 22, we see that in the EBITDA, we have included close to CAD26 million of Schedule 22 provision. And here, of course, you will have to see other quarters to get a better idea, but the way it's calculated is that the 407 does the estimate for the full year and that estimate is a percentage of the estimated revenues for the full year. I mean, that percentage is applied to the first quarter, right? In terms of percentage, it can be extrapolated, but of course, you will have to wait to see the quarters of higher traffic to get a better idea of the impact. Moving on to the next slide, in the Dallas Fort Worth manage lanes. Here we have outstanding performance in terms of revenue per transaction. And also, in January and February, there was a negative weather impact compared to last year, and even with that impact, the traffic performance has been very solid. Of course, NTE is still affected by the capacity improvement construction works. And this means that traffic in terms of transaction is lower than last year, but we have an outstanding performance in terms of revenues and helping by mandatory modes. Here, mandatory modes and revenues are also benefiting from a better traffic mix in terms of a higher percentage of heavy traffic. Also, you need to bear in mind that for the likelihood of mandatory mode events that there's a kind of traffic threshold, let's say that for two lanes, you have like 3,300 vehicles per hour. The heavy traffic implies two times what a light vehicle implies. In that calculation, you can get an idea that if there is higher heavy traffic, you are more likely to get a more mandatory mode. In LBJ, traffic grew despite construction activities in the nearby corridors and in 35 West, we also had solid traffic growth. We have revenue share according to this performance. In the first quarter of 2024, we didn't have any because the accrual was done at the end of the first half. So the second quarter of 2024 included six months of revenue share and now we're doing that quarter-by-quarter. Okay. Here at the bottom of the slide, we have the revenue per transaction growth that is a mixture of all these things. I mentioned in more activity, more peak activity, better traffic mix and more mandatory modes and this has helped this revenue per transaction performance. We also have the update on the slide of the soft cap that grew by 2.9% in 2025. If we move on to the following slides, we have the I-66. So increased mobility in peak hours, activity in rush hours is much higher that combined with really dynamic pricing, it means that revenues grow very healthy and revenue per transaction as well, so very solid performance from this highway. Also remember that all the traffic figures compared to 2024 that had one day more, so bear that in mind when comparing traffic. If we look into the I-77, also very strong performance, traffic is still favored, I mean not as much as in the last quarter of 2024, but this is still favored by the closure of the alternative I-40 that has reopened with limited capacity. So, I mean, there's more heavy traffic in the I-77 and that's helping the performance of the asset, but also on the negative side, it was affected by severe weather and also you have to compare with the leap year effects, so very strong performance from the asset. We also have revenue share here and the same explanation that I commented in Dallas Fort Worth applies here. Last year, the revenue share was accounted for in the second quarter for the full and the first half. Now we're doing it quarter-by-quarter. So we had $4 million of revenue share and we have an additional $2 million of extended vehicles payments and here I would say this is good news because in the last year, we had the extended vehicle agreement that was expiring at the end of 2024. The granter was receiving 50% of the revenues from these extended vehicles that were not part of the original concession agreement. Now the agreement to allow extended vehicles has been extended till the end of the concession. And the flip to that is that the grantor gets two-thirds of the revenue from extended vehicles, but it goes to the end of the concession. So it's good news, but when you're looking into the comparison, please bear that in mind. Moving on to airports, at JFK, development is ongoing. In the first quarter, we had a physical progress relevance, 6% advancement and also advancement with airlines. There's agreement with 18 airlines, and 13 executed and 5 are letters of intent. We continue investing. As I mentioned at the beginning, €152 million have been invested in the first quarter and we have pending 167. So as we mentioned, this is a crucial year for JFK. It's advancing on budget. In terms of Dalaman, it's really a quarter that is not that representative because this is an airport activity based around the tourist season that starts in the second quarter. Nevertheless, domestic traffic was also higher than expected and it grew versus last year. Moving on to construction. In construction, we see steady profitability across the board. You see that Budimex, Webber, Ferrovial construction are showing solid margins. Budimex profitability is slightly lower than the previous year, but remember that in 2024, there was updating of the indexation cap in public contracts. So there was like a, let's say, retroactive capture of that part, if I may say so. So that was a higher impact, but the margins remain very solid. And both Webber and Ferrovial Construction have higher margins than in the first quarter last year. In terms of order book, I mean it's at the peak level and we have lower weight of large design and build projects. Our focus is to be on local markets and with lower weight of large design and build projects that are not with group companies. The order book reflects that and we'll talk in the closing remarks about the uncertainty that could affect performance. We are comfortable with this order book. More on that in the closing remarks. When you look into the breakdown by geography, we see that it's concentrated in the U.S. and Canada and second Poland. In terms of outlook, we remain with our long-term target of 3.5 adjusted EBIT margin. Okay. So somewhere in the next slide of the main figures, strong growth and revenue, 7.4%, adjusted EBITDA 19.1% and adjusted EBIT 28.3%, so very solid start of the year. Moving on to the net debt position, well, we have the breakdown of the effects on cash. I mean, dividends for projects are very small. The main component in the €19 million that we have is dividends from Heathrow. Then we have the operating cash flows from construction and other activities. It's useful to have this working capital effect at the beginning of the year. And then we have tax payments that are basically related to our operations in Poland. And then we have the cash flows used in investment activities, the interest received and the investments that I mentioned at the beginning, together with the treasury service repurchase. I mean, the cash flow used in financing activities is related to repayment of external debt that has the counter in the reduction of debt, so very solid net cash position and negative net debt at the end of the first quarter. So just concluding before getting into the Q&A, I think this is a very solid set of results where we benefit from the performance of our North American infrastructure assets. And this performance is benefiting from increased customer segmentation. I mean we are tailoring more to our customer needs. The underlying growth in the assets locations is something that is kind of long-term underlying trends. Then of course, we are looking forward with a great appetite for the pipeline that's coming. And the I-24 is still pending the pre-qualification results, the I-285, the pre-qualification was published and all these business are expected in the first half of 2026. In terms of construction order book, it has limited exposure to macroeconomic uncertainty. We have a lot of backlog in the U.S. and Canada, but it's in a much more comfortable position than in the past in the sense that the percentage of design and build projects in the early phases, that is basically when you're finalizing design and you need to really quantify what is going to be built by subcontractors and with all the supplies you need to get for the final design. We don't have that. I mean, the biggest one in the backlog that is the Ontario Line project has price protection and we don't have any sort of big design and build like any managed lane in the early stages where really you have to risk the project with final design and procurement. So with this condition and also with price indexation in other areas like Poland, Spain and so on, we think that we have limited exposure to the macroeconomic uncertainty. Okay. So thanks for bearing with me through the presentation. Let's get into the Q&A. Thank you.