Ferrovial


Ferrovial, S.A., previously Grupo Ferrovial, is a Spanish multinational company involved in the design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance of transport infrastructure and urban services. It is a publicly traded company and is part of the IBEX 35 capitalization-weighted stock market index. The company is headquartered in Madrid. Ferrovial operates through four divisions in over 5 countries. Its Highway division finances and operates toll roads including 407 ETR, North Tarrant Express, LBJ Express, Euroscut Azores and Ausol I. The Airport sector has developed and produced airports in Heathrow, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton. Its Construction business designs and constructs public and private works such as roads, highways, airports and buildings. The company's Services sector oversees the maintenance and conservation of infrastructure, facilities and buildings, the collection and treatment of waste, and other types of public services.

History

The company was founded by Rafael del Pino y Moreno in 1952 as a railroad construction company called Ferrovial, from the Spanish word for "railroad". Ferrovial acquired 98.27% of Agroman, another leading Spanish contractor in June 1995 and then set up Cintra in February 1998: presided over by Rafael del Pino Calvo-Sotelo, Cintra originally comprised three business lines: Car Parks, Toll Roads and Airports.
In the early years of the new millennium the company expanded acquiring 58.5% of the Polish construction company Budimex Dromex S.A. in April 2000 and Bristol Airport in Southwest England in December 2000. Joaquín Ayuso was appointed CEO of the Ferrovial group in January 2002; Santiago Bergareche remained on the Board and was appointed Vice Chairman. In June 2002, Ferrovial acquired the concession for Sydney airport, the largest airport in Australia.
The company then expanded in the United Kingdom acquiring Amey plc, a British contractor and major investor in Tube Lines, one of the two public–private partnership companies responsible for the maintenance of London Underground's lines and rolling stock in April 2003 and Belfast City Airport in May 2003.
Acquisitions continued: the Texan group Webber, specializing in civil engineering infrastructure, recycling of aggregates and extraction and supply of sand in Texas and Swissport International were both bought in August 2005.
In 2006, a Ferrovial-led consortium purchased the British company BAA Limited, for £10bn and BAA sold its stake in Bristol airport to Macquarie Airports. Then in 2007, Ferrovial finalised the sale of its stake in Sydney Airport and MAp exercised its call option on Ferrovial Airports' 20.9% stake in Sydney Airport for the agreed price of A$1.009 bn. Also in 2007 Ferrovial sold Budapest Airport to a consortium led by Hochtief AirPort GmbH for £1.3bn and announced changes in its corporate structure. Iñigo Meirás, former Head of the Services Division, was appointed CEO of the new Airports Division. Santiago Olivares, who was head of the international area of the Services division and CEO of the handling subsidiary, Swissport, was appointed CEO of Ferrovial Servicios. Enrique Díaz Rato, then CEO of Cintra, was appointed to head the Toll Roads & Car Parks Division. At the end of the year BAA finalised the sale of its stakes in 6 Australian airports to Hastings Fund Management Limited for approx. €495m.
In 2008, BAA sold World Duty Free Europe to Autogrill for £546.6m, 33 properties of Airport Property Partnership to Arora Family Trust, a private group, for £265m and Belfast City Airport Limited to ABN Amro Global Infrastructure Fund / Faros Infrastructure Partners LLC for £132.5m.
In 2009, Ferrovial subsidiary Amey and the UK's Birmingham City Council announced financial close on the £2.7bn Birmingham Highways private finance initiative scheme and Cintra completed the sale of its 99.92% stake in subsidiary Cintra Aparcamientos, S.A. to a consortium for €451m, including bank debt. Later in the year, Ferrovial appointed Íñigo Meirás as the new CEO, relieving Joaquín Ayuso who was subsequently named Vice-Chairman of the group. On 21 October 2009, BAA reached an agreement to sell London Gatwick airport to an entity controlled by Global Infrastructure Partnership for £1.5bn and Ferrovial's majority-owned subsidiary Cintra was reacquired in full in December 2009. On 17 December 2009, NTE Mobility Partners LLC, a consortium in which Cintra has a majority stake, completed raising $2 bn to finance the North Tarrant Express Managed Lanes project in Texas and on 29 December 2009, Cintra sold 60% of its Chilean subsidiary to ISA for €209m.
In 2010, Ferrovial built the M3 Motorway in Ireland which destroyed 140 monuments, two national monuments including Lismullin. Despite pleas by Conor Newman, a former Director of the government's own Tara Discovery Programme and subsequent chairman of the Irish Heritage Council, the motorway was embedded in the Rath Lugh National Monument also known as the Great Rath. It described by Seamus Heaney, Nobel Laurette as "ruthless desecration". Land for proposed Leinster Orbital motorway corridor is reserved and impacts both Tara and Newgrange UNESCO World Heritage archaeological landscapes.
That same year, Transport for London completed the deal to purchase PPP contractor Tube Lines from Ferrovial for £310m and Ferrovial subsidiary Amey acquired the national rail consultancy of WYG Engineering Limited, part of the WYG Group. Ferrovial also sold its 50% stake in Autopista Trados 45 for €67m and Ferrovial Servicios subsidiary AmeyCespa acquired Dickerson Group, including its U.K. waste management company Donarbon, for £48.6m.
In 2012, BAA sold Edinburgh Airport to Global Infrastructure Partners for £807m. Ferrovial also announced the sale of a 10% stake in the parent company of Heathrow Airport Holdings Ltd to Qatar Holding LLC for £478m. Following this sale Ferrovial now has an indirect interest in Heathrow of 33.65%.
On 19 January 2013, Heathrow Airport Holdings announced the sale of Stansted Airport for £1.5bn to Manchester Airport Group and on 21 February 2013, Ferrovial, through Ferrovial Services, reached an agreement with international investor 3i to acquire Enterprise, one of the UK's leading providers of services to utilities and the public sector, for £385m.
In April 2016, Ferrovial bought out Broadspectrum, becoming the primary contractor to the Australian government for its internationally often condemned offshore Manus Regional Processing Centre in East Lorengau. Subsequently, Ferrovial announced that it did not want to renew its contract. However, thereupon, the Australian enacted a clause allowing a unilateral extension of the contract for five months.

Divisions

Highways

Ferrovial, through its subsidiary Cintra, is dedicated to the operation and management of a score of motorways. It operates the Autema motorway in Spain, as well as the SerranoPark car park in Madrid. The company has a 15% stake in the Autopista del Sol after a June 2019 transaction with Meridiam. In Portugal, it has a stake in three highways: Via do Infante, Norte Litoral and Scut Açores. In Canada and the United States, it operates freeways under a freeflow toll system, such as the 407 ETR and 407 EDG highways, LBJ Expressway, North Tarrant Express and NTE Extension.
In the northern European countries, Ferrovial has a 20% stake in motorways in Ireland and developed the M8 improvement project in Scotland.
In 2015, the group increased its profit by 80% to 720 million after the sale and de-consolidation of highways.

Airports

Ferrovial's first incursion in the private management of airports was the purchase of a stake in the Mexican company Aeropuertos del Sureste in 1998.
With the acquisition of BAA in 2006, Ferrovial went on to manage seven airports in the United Kingdom: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Southampton, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Also, two airports in Europe, one in Naples and one in Budapest, that they would later sell. Following the decision of the British Competition Commission, Ferrovial sold Gatwick Airport in 2009, in April 2012 they announced the sale of Edinburgh Airport and in August of that same year it offered the sale of Stansted Airport.
In July 2018, Ferrovial partnered with JLC Infrastructure and Basketball Hall of Famer Earvin "Magic" Johnson on a $650 million project to remodel the Denver International Airport. The project accounted for a 140,000 square meter area in the airport's Jeppesen Terminal.
Ferrovial operates four airports in the United Kingdom: Heathrow, Southampton, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

Construction

The construction division of the company is called Ferrovial Agroman, and it carries out its work in several countries, sometimes through subsidiaries.

Building subsidiaries

Ferrovial has a presence in 15 countries.

Spain

Major projects

Major construction projects undertaken by Ferrovial Agroman include: