Good morning, and thank you for joining this first half pre-results presentation. As always, we'll briefly analyze the key aspects of our results, which were released yesterday, followed by a Q&A session. As we did in the first quarter, we are referring growth rates to the 2020 pro forma figures. That is, with Industrial Services reclassified as discontinued operation after the sale agreement to VINCI, and accounting for our 50% stake in this as an equity method in both years. At the operating level, in this first half of the year, sales decreased 3.5% to EUR 13.3 billion, affected by the currency headwinds, especially the U.S. dollar, that has appreciated 9% year-on-year. FX adjusted sales remain stable.
The backlog stood at EUR 64 billion, growing 1.6% or 3.3% FX adjusted, supported by a recovery in the order intake during the first half. EBITDA reached EUR 737 million, increasing by 14.6%, thanks to the positive contribution from Abertis. Likewise, EBIT increased by 24.8% and reached EUR 482 million. The group net profit reached EUR 351 million, growing by 4.8%. Net profit is affected by a non-cash impact from market value changes in certain financial assets, mainly derivative instruments in ACS. As of June 30, 2021, the group had less than EUR 3 billion net debt, slightly higher than a year ago.
Due to the non-inclusion of the net cash from Industrial Services business, EUR 859 million at year-end 2020 after the sale agreement with VINCI. In this last quarter, we have been able to reduce the net debt by more than EUR 700 million, backed by the good performance of the working capital, as we'll see later on. Sales breakdown by geography. Our business strategy has focused on strengthening our presence in the main regions where we operate, maintaining the balanced distribution of activity. Currently, 90% of our sales come from our main three markets, 60% North America, this is U.S. and Canada, 19% from Australia and 11% from Spain. The remaining 10% come from Germany, 3%, the rest of Europe, another 3%, and the rest of the world, which represents another 4% of the overall sales.
Continuing with the first half performance, the North American market reached EUR 8 billion in sales. The significant FX impacts from the dollar depreciation, plus the slowdown in the activity compared with the first half of 2020 with a strong Q1, not yet affected by COVID, explain the year-on-year sales decrease. However, Q2 performance of 2021 shows a positive trend. In Australia, sales increased by 6.2% FX adjusted, where currency tailwinds drove sales higher. Meanwhile, Spain experienced 10.5% sales growth to EUR 1.4 billion. Operating performance by activity. In construction, sales reached EUR 12.3 billion with an EBITDA of EUR 617 million. Margins decreased by 30 basis points, basically due to a more balanced risk profile of the project portfolio, higher weight of cost-plus and similar contracts.
Continuing with the 2020 trend, especially in the EBITDA margins, came down from 4.5% compared to 5.8% in year-end 2020. We target similar margins for the rest of the year. On the other hand, in concessions, EBITDA increased to EUR 55 million from -EUR 32 million, driven by traffic recovery in Abertis concessions. Lastly, services, sales and operating margins returned to regular levels from COVID. Net profit by activities. Construction net profit amounted to EUR 158 million, up by 4.3%, supported by lower tax rate in Hochtief and the capital gains in the disposal of Continental Rail. Concession net profit rose to EUR 42 million, driven by EUR 25 million contribution from Abertis. Industrial services reached EUR 270 million, 31% higher than the previous year.
This increase is mainly due to a net accounting impact, EUR 23 million, of different energy asset transactions, as well as non-depreciating the asset after the sale agreement with VINCI. Services net profit reached EUR 14 million, fully recovering from COVID impact. Finally, ACS headquarters accounted for a negative result of EUR 132 million, affected by non-recurring financial results related to change in the market value of derivatives, EUR -94 million , having no cash impact. Overall, the group's net profit as of June 2021 reached EUR 351 million, 4.8% higher year-on-year. Can we hit the next slide? Okay. Abertis results.
During the first half of 2021, Abertis had an average daily traffic volume growth of 22.4% in concessions, with positive performance in all operating regions, thanks to the normalization of health restrictions, as you can see in this slide. I hope you can see it, because we don't see it yet. Traffic is approaching pre-pandemic levels, increasing by 6% on average compared to 2019, with some countries having reached pre-pandemic traffic levels, U.S., Mexico already. Therefore, Abertis operating revenues went up by 26% and EBITDA up by 40%, supported by the incorporation of RCO in Mexico and Elizabeth River Crossings in Virginia since the mid-2020. The inclusion of these new assets strengthens Abertis growth platform in North America and facilitates the analysis of future opportunities.
Moreover, Abertis continues to explore new investment opportunities in brownfield projects to diversify its concession portfolio and sources of revenue. Meanwhile, Abertis net profit pre PPA amounted to EUR 262 million for the first six months, an increase of 95%, driving Abertis profit contribution to ACS to EUR 25 million. In addition, last April, Abertis proceeded with the dividend payment of EUR 601 million, 297 corresponding to the group ACS. Q2 recovery trend. During the second quarter of the year, we have seen recovery trend in KPIs. Sales grew by 4.1% in Q2 versus the same period in 2020. I don't see the slides in the screen. I don't know if you can see them, but if you don't see them, we'll fax them to you after we finish the presentation.
It's available in the CNMV.
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It's available in the CNMV.
Okay. Sales grew at 4.1% in Q2 versus the same period in 2020. This positive performance is shown across core different markets, particularly in Europe and Australia, but also in the U.S., if we adjust FX impact. EBITDA increased by 36.4% in Q2, thanks to the positive EUR 31 million contribution from Abertis versus negative EUR 39 million in Q2 2020. Likewise, the operating activities experienced margin improvements both in North America and services. In addition, cash flow levels improved significantly in Q2 of the year, supported by good working capital, EUR +135 million versus EUR -363 million in Q2 2020. Consequently, net funds from operations generated almost half a billion EUR more than last year, reaching up to EUR 666 million.
Therefore, in this last quarter, we have been able to reduce net debt by more than EUR 700 million. Last twelve-month net debt evolution. At the end of June 2021, the group had a net debt of less than EUR 3 billion. This figure is affected by non-inclusion of Industrial Services cash, EUR 859 million at year-end 2020. After the sale agreement reached with VINCI and is therefore excluded from the group's net debt balance in 2021. Not considering this fact, consolidated net debt has decreased by more than EUR 500 million over the last twelve months, supported by the group's solid cash generation and the good performance of operating working capital in all activities, improving by EUR 304 million euros since the first half of 2020.
The good performance has been especially remarkable in Q2, when we have been able to reduce the group net debt by more than EUR 700 million, confirming the positive trend shown by all activities. We look forward to continuing the second half the positive evolution of working capital, aiming to recover part of the amount invested over the past years. Backlog evolution. As of June 2021, total group's backlog amounted to EUR 64 billion, 3.3% higher FX adjusted. By core countries, we sum up over 80% of the backlog. In the U.S., backlog grew by 4%, up to EUR 27.4 billion. Australia, which stood at EUR 19.8 billion, 4% like for like. Spain reached nearly EUR 5 billion, remaining neutral.
This positive evolution is backed by a strong order intake during the first half of the year of over EUR 17 billion, equivalent to a book-to-bill ratio of over 1.1x . Among the most relevant awards in the period, we can highlight the construction of the three-lane twin tunnels on Northeast Link in Melbourne, construction of the stage one Sydney M6 motorway, CopperString 2.0 project, high voltage transmission network in Queensland, the lane widening from 110- 116 from U.S. 60 in Arizona, the revamp of Anderson Dam in California, as well as two Amazon logistics warehouses in Spain, in Zaragoza and Asturias, among many others. Furthermore, we have positive outlook based on the stimulus plans and Green Deal agreements as part of a crisis response from governments.
Some of them have been already announced, but the current project pipeline, including Infra PPPs, provide us confidence in the future. Just to finish, I would like to highlight the group's first half results, confirming the resilience of our business, backed by a strategic decision to focus in the most developed markets and activities that render higher visibility. The more balanced risk profile. Key takeaways of the group performance in Q2 2021. Sales recovery trend across core markets with profitability levels returning to pre-COVID. Significantly improving the free cash flow generation and a solid backlog underpinned by strong order intake. This setup upholds recovery trends in profitability, cash flow, and backlog positioning, for the group, and we are on track to meet the 2021 targets. I apologize for the lack of-
Don't worry. We have checked it's working.
Anyway, now that we're available, you want to ask any questions. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero-one on your telephone keypad. Please be informed that there might be a short silence while questions are registered. Thank you. The first question comes from Bosco Ojeda from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. I have a question on your Industrial Services activities, those that you would keep after the VINCI disposal. The contribution to EBITDA was nearly EUR 50 million in the first half. That's quite high with a very high margin. If you could give us a bit of detail, what is that exactly, why the high margin, and whether that is sustainable. Also, on Dragados, the margin was a bit weak this quarter. You could give us a bit of color on the outlook. Finally, on reinvestment on the cash you will get from VINCI, if you have advanced or make any progress on any potential new reinvestments. Thank you.
Thank you, Bosco. Well, the Industrial Services activity obviously is in a transition because we're having accounted for held for sale most of the assets that was being transferred. We report only the net profit of the activity we're going to sell, and we incorporate and fully consolidated the ones we're going to keep. This is where, as you rightly said, is an increase in EBITDA from in the first quarter from EUR 10 million- EUR 50 million in the second quarter. I guess, basically a couple of things. First of all, there's been the acquisition of a smaller stake, which we are trying to get in a gas plant in Cagua.
Now we consolidate by full integration, and this is basically EUR 20 million on itself, which we did not account in the first quarter. This is due to the fact that we had a 5% stake, which was preventing us to consolidate. Second, we also have photovoltaic PV plant, which started to be working. The previous quarter were EUR -2 million, and now it's basically positive almost EUR 5 million. You've got EUR 7 million there. In the Thermosolar Plant, we had basically zero, EUR -1 million in the first quarter, and now we've got 12.45%, so EUR 12.5 million. Altogether, you got there EUR 21 million here and EUR 20 million in the full consolidation. That explains you basically the EUR 40 million difference between the two.
Obviously, the assets we're going to be keeping, regardless of the fact that we might sell some. We are terminating their development. Some of them were and still are under construction, and we'll try to keep them in an operating level, whether we sell them or keep them. This is basically the reason why it is changed. Second, you asked for the margins in Dragados. Well, in Dragados is changing the risk profile in this contract. Basically, as you see, the margins in the industry really is low, and cannot absorb the risk that turnkey contract proposing.
Basically, it's shifting its operating focus into more open book type, pre-development agreement type, where the risks are either shared with the client or significantly reduced because you actually contract most of the units before you actually offer them to the client. That reduces the margins a bit, but reduces the volatility of results tremendously. This is the direction in which the market is going. Mostly, you see the Anglo-Saxon market, U.K. and Australia, and is becoming also in the US. This is basically the laws of the land. Clients acknowledge that it doesn't make any sense to pass on all the costs, all the risks to the contractor if they want to have competitive pricing.
The capital location.
The capital allocation, I guess, we've announced to everybody that our intention is to focus the resources more in the concession type of investment. Obviously, a lot of things are going on, and I think, trying to be faithful to this policy, we're contemplating transactions on these lines. We're working on some, but we have still some time to go. Not necessarily need to match the investment with the divestment, because we'll restart one or the other, but in the direction will be pretty much investment in concessions.
Okay, clear. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Alejandro Vigil from Bestinver Securities. Please go ahead.
Hello, Ángel Luis. Thank you for opportunity of making these questions. I have one question about your joint venture with VINCI in renewables. If you can give us any color, how is this joint venture working? If you have already some projects under discussion. Any color will be helpful. The second question is about the dividend. Dividend has been very important for the ACS group so far. You see your dividend sustainable at the current levels, taking into account the current 8% dividend yield. Thank you.
Okay. The two questions very easy to answer. The first one, you ask about how the joint venture is working with VINCI. It is not working at all. It's an agreement that we have in which obviously when the transaction complete, we have the agreement of creating a new co where they will contribute the asset and the renewable assets are going to be developed by the VINCI group, which is the ones that our people has been developing. We have the chance to invest 49% of the market value of those. Obviously, nothing has happened because the pipeline is working at the beginning of its process.
It will happen when the transaction is completed, and it will be a recurring event. Assets when they will be completed will be transferred to the new co, and we'll have the chance to invest. The second question, dividend. Well, you made a comment which is it has a two-fold interpretations. Obviously, I think the dividend yield will not be able to maintain that we have. Not because we're going to reduce dividend, but because I hope the value of our shares will increase significantly. The 65% payout is what we have is nothing cast in stone, but I mean, it's been the practice of the group. Obviously we believe we are grossly undervalued.
That is why the dividend yield appears to be so high. It is so high. We think when the value recovers, we'll get a more reasonable dividend yield.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you. May I just follow up on also on the treasury stock that is close to 10%, which is going to be your policy in terms of treasury stock going forward?
Well, basically, as you know, we offer this dividend alternative to the dividends, mostly because most of our investors look for it. 60% of our dividends has been requested in shares. What we do is we keep on buying because we have to deplete. The philosophy of the group is the shareholders do not get diluted by the scrip dividend. We cancel exactly the same amount of shares we have to issue for the dividend. In order to cancel those shares, we have to acquire them first. We try to buy them throughout the year, but with a heavier emphasis in the period where this looks to be cheaper. The policy is basically that.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Luis Prieto from Kepler. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen. Luis Prieto here. I had a couple of questions. The first one is, the chairman recognized group complexity, if I recall correctly, in the full-year presentation. I would like to know if you can provide us with any granularity in terms of what solving group complexity could imply, if any measures have already been analyzed and what we could expect over the next 12- 24 months. The second question is, on the de-risking,
Luis, repeat the last question because your voice was cut off. The last question.
Yeah. It's regarding the Dragados de-risking that you commented just a moment ago. I'd like to know if you have already detected cost inflation pressures in your business. Regarding this de-risking, what sort of actual mechanisms are you using to reduce the cost inflation pressures? Hochtief the other day, or yesterday, provided some insights on the different mechanisms that they're using. If you could provide us with something similar for Dragados, that would be very useful.
Okay. To start with the group complexity, I mean, you don't need to do a super MBA to see that we are complex. We have three companies which are listed one on top of the other. We've got different stakes in different ones. Obviously, this makes a bit more difficult to follow the direction of the group. We agree that group complexity is something that the shareholders do not like. We have in mind to reduce group complexity, but as we've always said, not at the expense of reducing profitability. This is something which will happen when we see opportunities for it to happen. I couldn't tell you more because people say, "Are you going to
Now that you have cash, are you going to buy back all the remaining Hochtief?" Well, that is not our intention. That was also manifested. But to reduce group complexity is something that we have to do, creating value for the shareholders rather than destroying value. I wish I could be more precise, but we do not have yet a set plan for that. It will have to be planned by the management as opportunities appear. The pricing issue with the Dragados, I think is something which was manifested, but it's probably something which has happened in the industry worldwide. We look at different competitors. Basically, everybody is following the same approach.
Probably we have the possibility of looking at it in more wide angle view because we are present in many of the different markets, and really important in all of them. In America, in Australia, and in Europe, we're probably one of the largest contractors. That is a trend which the industry is going through. It's very little that anybody could do to change that. The margins are the result of competitive pressures. As a consequence, with the margins which are dictated in the industry, you cannot absorb the risk and traditionally were passed onto the construction groups. How do we cope with that? Simply saying, "Thank you very much. I'm not going to be for this job."
This has happened several times in many jobs and in many markets, but it's not an ACS practice. I mean, you see, most of our competitors doing the same. When you see risks that cannot be absorbed in the ordinary industrial performance, something like, for instance, geological risk or, legislative risk, when change your legislation and you have to bear the results of it, things which are not certain, is something that you simply say, "If these are the rules of the game, I'm going to pass on this bid." Now, in terms, of course, inflation, this is something which really is happening recently with quite some aggressivity.
In the short-term jobs, mostly construction buildings which take one to two years, that is normally taken care of in the bidding process. You make an assumption, and obviously not only make an assumption when you bid, but when you get the job awarded, you basically buy most of the stuff, and have an allowance for price variations, but it's not so much important. More in the infrastructure work, in the civil works, is where the problem appears. I guess in most of the civil works contracts, you get cost escalation clauses. Price escalation clauses. Simply because in a job which is 5 years, you cannot absorb the evolution of the world market prices. Mostly it is a concession which requires to have a set investment amount.
Either you get a clause which allows you for price escalation and also the developer makes a provision to take care of that possibility. It is, as we were saying with the risk, something which construction companies cannot live with the price variations we were seeing now, and obviously we're trying to build precautions in the contract. It's nothing new. When I finished college, I recall the price escalation clauses in the Ministry of Public Works, you were assuming a yearly increase about 25% per year. Roads were built and dams were built. Basically, you develop a mechanism to tackle with that. The problem now is that it has come so inadvertently, which appears something which has never happened.
There's a lot of practice of handling this issue.
Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Martin Watchtower from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you very much for taking my question. I just wanted to ask for a clarification about your strategy of growing in concessions. Can you confirm that you are mostly interested in transportation infrastructure concessions, or you also see some opportunities for the company outside of transportation? When it comes to transportation, are you focused primarily on motorways or you could also maybe look at airports or car parks or rail or some other types of assets? Thank you.
Okay. Well, basically, there is not a major departure from what our tradition has been. Basically, we're focusing developing transportation concessions, and this is what we've been doing most of our recent history. It is true that we've done, probably 25 years ago, developed a lot of hardware concessions. Don't see so much coming in the market. You can do other smaller concessions, social infrastructure, hospitals, what have you. But if there are opportunities, attractive opportunities, we'll pursue them. The only reason why we focus on transportation concessions in volume-wise, normally takes the lion's share. So basically, if you want to simplify, we say we'll develop mostly transportation concessions without saying that we would not do any of the other, but volume-wise, this will be the case.
Now, you said roads, railroads. Again, that depends very much on market conditions. The philosophy is the same. It requires a physical infrastructure, which we are able to build with our construction capacity as a financial performance, and makes no difference whether it's a road or a railroad. If there appears to be new and interesting opportunities in railroad, that they always will be considered. The bulk of it now, we can say is road transportation concessions.
Okay. Thank you. If I can have a follow-up. I mean, these investments, are they likely to be done via Abertis, with your partners that you've got there, or this is more likely to be done directly from the ACS level or perhaps both? If you could
Well-
Thank you.
I guess basically philosophy always has been presence in Abertis now is not different than what we have when we created Abertis in 2003 or 2004. Basically, we develop infrastructures and the first thing we did when we're going to develop infrastructure our partner there was la Caixa. Both of us have a controlling interest in the company. We developed the greenfield ourselves. After the greenfield was developed, we offer it to la Caixa to Abertis. They wanted to buy it, and they bought it. They had kind of a right of first option. Most of the concessions that Abertis has, we built.
I guess probably only 15% of the ones we offer, we did not agree on the price, and we simply said, "Well, we think this is not the market price," and we sold it outside. That was the philosophy in the past history. Now, the partner we have is an industrial operator. We do not have any problem to do both green and brownfield with them. Obviously, the philosophy will be the same. We will be scouting investment opportunities through our scouting arm, which is Iridium. We will see if there's a concession, a greenfield concession, which appears to make sense from our standpoint. We will offer to our partners if it can be done by Abertis or Abertis is interested.
If they do not have the same view that we have, we'll continue doing this ourselves with the financial partners of any kind. Obviously the first call will be for Abertis. Iridium will continue doing things on its own. It might be that in some instances, Abertis might say, "Well, I'm interested in the asset, but when it's in a brownfield stage," well, that is also perfectly valid. We have a pretty open flexibility because we can live with both environments, and doing it through Abertis or doing it ourselves. In the best interest of the group will be to do it in a manner which creates value for the group, which is, if Abertis want it through Abertis, which has a balance sheet prepared for that, or if not, we'll do this, directly ourselves.
Okay. Well, thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from João Safara from Banco Santander. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three questions. The first question was just to have, I mean, your view regarding the depression raw materials and how this could impact the-
Say that again. I did not hear you at all. Say that again, if you please.
Yes. Is it better now?
Yes.
Yes, going back to the raw materials, and I wanted to have your view on if you've seen or you're starting to see any clients, well, let's say, delaying some projects or having second thoughts about going through with some projects, given the current raw material and expected forecasts of raw material at least in the next year. Do you think this is going to be an issue or something that you're pretty, I mean, comfortable with at this point in time? That would be my first question. The second question would be just if you could give us a bit more color on the evolution of working capital, specifically in this quarter.
What was the main driver there for the positive working capital in the quarter? Then the other question would be, I guess the follow-up question, on the Industrial Services, the businesses that you retained from Industrial Services. At some point, you gave us, let's say, an estimated valuation, if you could update us on what's that valuation. Also if you could give us a bit of an idea on how the sale of these assets will proceed in the next couple of years. To understand if you're retaining most of it, for the next couple of years or if you expect to be out of this business, let's say, in the next two to three years. Thank you.
Okay. Well, to answer you with the first one, raw material escalation or concerns over the escalation, it's never been an issue. As I said, we've been living with 20% inflation a year, and we've done a lot of things, and we've lived with negative inflation as well. We will obviously have to incorporate cost escalation, but that depends very much on the different clients, and client might like to do it in a manner or the other. Just to put a very simple example, if a client, for its own sake, cannot take any price variation, you have to build yourself an allowance, which is probably going to be more expensive for them than it was to take it, because obviously you need to build yourself a proportion.
We don't want to gamble here. Historically, for the government has been much more efficient to have a cost escalation than to have the builder create his own precautionary cushion to have the escalation. I don't think it will be an issue. It is a concern, but it's a concern that will be dealt with at the beginning stage in the pricing and in the contract stage with the client. Now, the working capital, I think, we basically improved in Hochtief, but also in ACS. Dragados has been particularly good in working capital. I think, as you know, we try to be neutral through the year. The first quarter is obviously the worst.
We keep on going up and try to improve it. The idea is to get neutral, but that you never know how close to the objective you get until the end of the year. We have good estimation that the work average is going to keep on being reduced. In terms of the Industrial Services, the value of the renewable assets, I think we have not really revalued that. The assets have been completed. Some of them were not even operational. They were under construction. Some of them are operational. As you saw, there was an asset that we were consolidating by equity method with a small shareholder. We bought them out because it gives much more flexibility to have 100% owned.
Ideally, we will sell these assets. We're not going to have, outside of a Banci joint venture, we don't plan to have a very large platform of energy assets. It depends very much how things go. If we believe then we're able to achieve the market, the price that we perceive, we will sell them. If not, we'll wait, because they are income producing and adding results to the group. We only depend on how the market evolves and whether we're able to meet our expectations. It's not something that we're now paying much attention to it because we're basically trying to complete the transaction with Banci, is where we put all the emphasis.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you again. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. The next question comes from Beltrán Palazuelo from Santalucía Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning, Ángel Luis. Thank you for the detailed presentation. I know you said it, but what is the timeline? What day, what month do you think the VINCI proceeds will enter the bank account? I know it's not all in your hand, but just to see. Regarding the pipeline of infrastructure in ACS, if you could give us a little bit more detail on geography, size, and timeline to reinvest the proceeds. Also to Abertis, more pipeline of when do you think another operation can happen to keep adding value?
Regarding, it was a very interesting thing you said that you expect your dividend yield to go down, not because you're going to lower your dividend, because you expect your share price to, let's say, be closer to the sum of your parts. As is, ACS always has been very good in capital allocation. Is it in the cards of, let's say, reinvesting part of those proceeds in your own company, buying more shares? Because at the end of the day, you would be buying more Abertis, which is more infrastructure, let's say at maybe -40% of your internal evaluation.
Okay. Thank you very much. First of all, the timing for Banci. What we have in the script is towards the end of the year. We are shooting to get it done in December. When we talk to the people, now we're in a purely bureaucratic stage. It's basically trying to get all the competition approvals from 40 different markets. Obviously, the European Commission is already being expedited. It's a month and a half period, and it's very easy. You got 40 other markets where you have to go through. We've got both the lawyers hired by Banci plus our geographical delegations pushing in those administrations to expedite matters.
It looks like we're going to be able to achieve it, so I will be very happy we're able to get the cash by year-end on our bank account. It's something which only time will tell. It's obviously if it is something which is still pending, a small percentage, we can do it, but if it is still 30%, we'll postpone the closing. We think that it is very likely that within the year, the transaction will happen. Now you said that,
The pipeline of the-
Oh, pipeline. Yeah. Here. We've got, basically, you've got a strong pipeline of projects to be tendered and awarded in key markets. Approximately EUR 600 billion in 2021 and thereafter. Asia-Pacific has about 50% of it. America, 39% of it, and Europe, 11% of it. This is basically what you get when you look at the different regions, what do they have in their drawings, in their blueprints. Obviously, in some markets are being more active and more expeditious in implementing them, in others less. I must say that, for instance, the Australian government is particularly strong in getting mobilizing the stimulus package. They're getting now a four-year plan to take into the market, which is they want to stimulate the economy very strongly.
We think it's going to be significant coming there. The U.S. also, and Spain, we need to see. I mean, it's basically, the one which is less clear. I think, the European funds are going to facilitate the inclusion of some projects which are approved, but are waiting to get funding. With these funds, probably, I think they will move on. That depends very much on the marketplace. As I said, EUR 600 billion pipeline in Europe expecting to be done. Even if we're able to get a small percentage of it, that'll take care of us.
On Abertis, the brownfield. The pipeline of Abertis, potential investment on Abertis.
No, but it, this EUR 600 billion is also including the pipeline of Abertis. No, well, you also asked, what about if we would invest some of the capital we're going to get into ACS shares? I guess this is something which we've done in the past. It does not preclude that we do in the future. I think we need first to wait to see how the whole investment portfolio appears, and we'll take decisions later on. At this stage, we keep all the options open.
Okay. Thank you very much for the detailed answers and for the hard work. Thank you.
Thank you very much. There are no further questions in today's conference call. Dear speaker, back to you for the conclusion.
Well, thank you very much again. I apologize for two things. First, because some slides did not show up properly. Second, because my lousy voice is a consequence of a cold which was created by the air conditioning, and I've not been able to speak so clearly as I would have liked. I wish you good holidays, and you know that you can call us if you have any question you want to clarify. Thank you very much.