Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us in this 2025 first quarter results call of ACS Group. This is Javier Crespo, Head of Investor Relations. The call will be led by our CEO, Juan Santamaría, who is accompanied by our Corporate General Manager, Ángel García Altozano, the Group's Financial Chief Officer, Emilio Grande, and the rest of the management team. As usual, after the presentation from our CEO, we will open up for a Q&A session and look forward to hearing your questions. Now, let me pass it on to Juan.
Thank you so much, Javier, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for being with us today. The Group has performed strongly in the first three months of the year with solid growth in sales, backlog, and net profit, backed by strong cash flow generation. Net profit of EUR 191 million shows an increase of 17% on a comparable basis year on year after deducting Q1 2024 extraordinary impacts. Also, please note HOCHTIEF's capital gain related to Flatiron Dragados transaction in Q1 2025 is eliminated at ACS level given its intrag roup merger. Sales were up by 35%, driven by strong performance, while operating margins evolved positively across all segments. In terms of cash generation, we have achieved a strong net operating cash flow of EUR 1.7 billion in the last 12 months, up EUR 390 million year on year, driven by sustained high cash conversion.
Thanks to the strong cash generation, netted position at the end of March was EUR 2.8 billion, which includes the additional EUR 1.2 billion from the consolidation of TIS and EUR 623 million of extraordinary capital allocation in the quarter, such as the acquisition of Dornan, or infrastructure investments, mainly data centers, as well as EUR 112 million of shareholder remuneration. New orders during the quarter were significantly strong, with EUR 15.6 billion. They increased more than 18% year on year and represented a 1.3x book-to-bill ratio. As a result, order backlog increased to a new record level of EUR 90.8 billion, equivalent to two years of work done. In addition to this extraordinary acquisition of Dornan, the integration of Flatiron Dragados North America was also successfully completed in January 2025. We're confident we're well positioned to further expand our strong presence in extraordinary growth markets with significant equity investment opportunities.
Looking forward, we remain very optimistic about the future of the Group, and we reiterate our ordinary net profit growth target for 2025 of up to 17%. Let's look now in greater detail into the consolidated results for the period. Sales show a strong growth of 35.4% to EUR 11.8 billion. This solid performance was driven by robust activity across all segments, with continued positive momentum in engineering and construction and a strong growth at Turner, especially in advanced technology, further boosted by the first-time contribution of Dornan. On a like-for-like basis, accounting for TIS as fully consolidated in Q1 2024, sales growth would still be of an outstanding 23.6% in the period. EBITDA increased by 51.7% to EUR 699 million, showing the margin expansion supported by the segment mix. Profit before tax amounted to EUR 354 million, up 25.8%, and was particularly fueled by the growth in integrated solutions and [EMZ].
We delivered a strong net profit growth at 17.2% year on year on a comparable basis to EUR 191 million, in line with the top end of our growth guidance for ordinary NPAT in the year. On a statutory basis, earnings per share grew by 9.4% to EUR 0.75. The following slide shows the ordinary net profit by segment, and I would underline that. First, Turner's contribution is up 72.2%, reaching the EUR 100 million mark, and driven by the strong growth in high-tech markets and biopharma, health, and education. CIMIC is up 4.8% FX adjusted, supported by good growth in data centers and other high-tech infrastructure. [EMZ] shows very resilient profitability, as well, growing at 33.7% year on year, driven by the North American operations.
Abertis had resilient operational performance in the period, but had a lower contribution impacted by non-recurring items, such as the new tax regulation in France and the timing of Easter this year. Let's turn now on slide five to the cash flow performance. Cash flow generation continues to be strong. Last 12 months' net operating cash flow amounted to EUR 1.7 billion, EUR 390 million more year on year, supported by a sustained cash flow conversion and strong growth from Turner. Working capital variation was stable, while net operating CapEx and leases increased mainly due to the consolidation of TIS. On a quarterly basis, cash flow reflects the characteristic first quarter seasonality and is consistent with the strong revenue growth seen during the period, and also partially explained by TIS' consolidation and the decreased factoring. Overall, the Group's cash generation remains very strong, and we expect another solid result in 2025.
Our net debt position as of March 2025 stood at EUR 2.8 billion, showing an increase of EUR 1.2 billion since March 2024, driven again by the consolidation of TIS' net debt of EUR 1.2 billion. Our strong last 12 months' net operating cash flow of EUR 1.7 billion enabled us to carry out net equity investments, an M&A of EUR 905 million, and remunerate shareholders with EUR 712 million. The net equity investments and M&A in the last 12 months included the acquisition of Dornan, the additional 10% stake in TIS, the acquisition of an additional stake in HOCHTIEF, infrastructure investments, which are mostly data centers, and other complementary extraday acquisitions.
Moving on to slide seven, our order backlog stands at EUR 90.8 billion, an increase of 16.5% year on year on the back of a very strong order intake of EUR 15.6 billion, up 18.3%, boosted by significant awards in data centers, healthcare, defense, and transportation, resulting in a Q1 book-to-bill of 1.3x . I would like to highlight our strong position in Germany to capture the increased infrastructure investment focus. New awards in the country in Q1 have been more than double the average quarterly level in 2024. The trailing last 12 months' book-to-bill ratio, a leading indicator of this growth, stands stable at 1.2x , while the visibility of the portfolio is of circa two years. In the following slide, we can see a selection of recent awards.
Some key projects to highlight would be: in the energy sector, we have been appointed to design, supply, install, and commission extensions to the existing near about 132 kV and 330 kV substations located approximately 40 km north of Perth, Western Australia. In the data center space, recent additional projects include Vantage 64 MW data centers in Melbourne, specifically designed to meet artificial intelligence workload demands. We would also like to highlight the important work we are undertaking in Germany, a key market for the Group. Notably, in biopharma and health and social infrastructure, we have been awarded the EUR 190 million old chamber expansion of the Rosenheim Technical University Technology Park. The project includes the development of advanced laboratory and machinery facilities, as well as a new student center.
In sustainable mobility, we were awarded a major contract for the second main line of the S-Bahn rail network to link the Ostbahnhof and Marienhof stations in the heart of Munich. In Australia, we were awarded a design and pre-construction contract of the Logan and Gold Coast Faster Rail project in Queensland. Another notable project is the Stobie mine in Canada, where critical minerals such as nickel and copper are extracted to respond to the global growth of these essential resources. Finally, we can highlight in defense the staged two-construction and upgrade of the maintenance, logistics, and airfield infrastructure of the RAAF Base Townsville in Queensland. Let us now have a look at the performance by segments. On slide 10, we begin with Turner.
Turner has continued to deliver very strong sales growth, increasing by 45.2% to EUR 5.8 billion, mainly driven by organic growth in data centers, healthcare, sports, and education sectors. This solid performance was further supported by the first-time contribution of slightly above EUR 300 million from Dornan, showing the benefit of the synergies that are starting to materialize and will continue in the future. Just to serve as reference, note that the ENR 2024 top 400 contractors benchmark grew the revenue by an average of 13.9%. By contrast, even without the additional contribution from Dornan, Turner grew at 38% this quarter. Profit before tax amounted to EUR 176 million, representing an outstanding increase of 62.3%. This was accompanied by continued margin expansion of 32 basis points to 3%, reflecting Turner's successful strategy focused on advanced technology projects.
Turner's commercial strength is demonstrated by its new orders of EUR 7.8 billion in Q1 2025, an increase of 10% year on year, driving order backlog to another record high of EUR 33.8 billion. This includes a contribution from Dornan of over EUR 1.1 billion. Going forward, we continue to gain visibility on the pipeline to 3% in Europe by Turner through Dornan of over EUR 20 billion. Moving on to operations in the Asia-Pacific region, we turn to CIMIC. Sales registered strong growth in extra day areas such as data centers, social infrastructure, and energy infrastructure, and were 42% higher due to the full consolidation of TIS, with a stable underlying performance overall. Profit before tax increased strongly by 52.2% to EUR 118 million year on year, with attributable net profit remaining stable year on year.
Our order backlog also saw a strong momentum, reaching EUR 23.4 billion, up 27.1%, FX adjusted, driven by solid growth across all segments, particularly in data centers, defense, and sustainable mobility, as well as the impact of TIS' consolidation. Turning now to the engineering and construction segment on slide 12, we can see solid growth, with consolidated sales increasing 17% year on year to over EUR 2.5 billion, driven by strong contributions from data centers and transportation, particularly in North America. EBITDA margin increased by 53 basis points to 5.28%, reflecting operational efficiencies across both Dragados and HOCHTIEF Europe. Profit before tax grew significantly by 56.6% to EUR 68 million, supported by a positive financial performance. The engineering and construction backlog rose 10.6% to EUR 30.7 billion, driven by a substantial increase in new orders, up over 30%, with particular strength in sustainable mobility and transportation infrastructure.
Importantly, our book-to-bill ratio remains strong at about 1.2x . Looking forward, the outlook remains very positive, and I would highlight that we are particularly well positioned to benefit from infrastructure investment focus in Germany, where, as anticipated earlier, our new orders have more than doubled since last quarter. Also, note that Flatiron Dragados is now fully consolidated within Dragados as of January 2025. Please refer to the appendix for detailed financials for Dragados. Continuing now with the infrastructure segment on slide 13, Abertis has had a resilient operating performance. The contribution to NPAT was further impacted by changes in the tax regulation of concessions in France. IRIDIUM, meanwhile, increased its sales by 68.4%, thanks to the additional contribution of the A13, the A2, Skyports, and assets from North America. On the next slide, we take a more detailed look at the Abertis numbers.
The company delivered strong revenues and EBITDA growth on a comparable basis of 7%, underpinned by the geographical diversification of the portfolio and inflation-linked tariffs. Traffic has grown by a solid 1.9%, supported by the strong performance of heavy vehicle traffic. We saw strong results, particularly in Spain, Mexico, and Brazil, and encouraging signs of recovery in France and Chile. Regarding Abertis' portfolio development, as you know, on February 28th, Abertis reached an agreement to acquire a 51.2% stake in the A63 toll road in France. This transaction aligns with our investment strategy to grow our EBITDA backlog and extend the portfolio's concession life, while enhancing exposure to stable foreign currency cash flows and ensuring geographical diversification. In Chile, the Santiago Los Villas concession has begun its operational management transition as of April 1st, further strengthening our presence in Latin America.
Abertis has improved its liquidity and financial strength, with our net debt set at EUR 22.5 billion, slightly below the year-end figure, an ample group liquidity of EUR 7.1 billion. A shareholder capital injection of EUR 400 million will be disbursed in Q2 2025 to support growth and strengthen the balance sheet of Abertis as part of the A63 acquisition. Additionally, Abertis distributed EUR 602 million of dividends to its shareholders at the end of last week. Let me give you more color on the important investment by Abertis, which we announced at our full year 2024 presentation. Abertis reached an agreement to acquire a 51.2% stake in the France A63 motorway, the strategic carrier between Spain and Northern Europe. The A63 is a 105 km toll road connecting Porto with Saint-Jean-de-Luz, an important tourist area near the Spanish border.
It is also a key route between Europe and the Iberian Peninsula for the transportation of goods, serving both as an industrial and touristic route. The acquisition strengthens Abertis' portfolio and financial solidity, with an asset in operation since 2013 and potential for growth during its remaining 26-year life. In 2024, the A63 generated EUR 170 million in revenue and an EBITDA of EUR 134 million, with a concession expiring in 2051. Thanks to this new acquisition, Abertis reinforces its presence in one of its core markets, contributing to the company's growth and cash flow replacement strategy, extending the Group's concession life. This investment, along with the recent acquisitions in Puerto Rico, Spain, and Chile, demonstrates Abertis' ability to grow and maintain a balanced portfolio with a mix of hard currencies such as the dollar and the euro in countries with a stable legal framework.
In slide 17, we saw the breakdown of key figures by country for Abertis' portfolio. As we close our review of the first quarter results, let me now briefly summarize our solid operating performance. The Group has delivered very strong sales of EUR 11.8 billion, growing at 35.4% year on year. Net profit stood at EUR 191 million, up 17.2% on a comparable basis, in line with the upper range of the guidance for the year. Our cash generation remains very strong, with our last 12 months' net operating cash flow at EUR 1.7 billion, up EUR 390 million year on year. Our backlog is a new record high of EUR 90.3 billion, growing by 16.5% year on year, thanks to very strong new orders of EUR 15.6 billion, a quarterly book-to-bill of 1.3x . Looking ahead, our capital allocation priorities remain clear.
We see significant greenfield infrastructure investment opportunities, particularly in data centers and mainslains in the U.S.. We remain focused on both acquisitions to enhance our engineering capabilities in extra day growth markets, as well as M&A opportunities in brownfield core infrastructure through Abertis. Ultimately, our goal is to achieve profitable growth and long-term value creation, combined with an attractive shareholder remuneration while maintaining our financial discipline. Let me conclude by saying that we remain confident in our outlook, underpinned by the strength of our business diversification and our global presence, with a position as well to navigate and benefit from the current geopolitical and macroeconomic environment. With solid fundamentals and strong growth prospects across our key markets, we are very well placed to continue creating value. Thank you all once again for your attendance today, and I look forward to your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now.
If you wish to ask a question, please press star 5 on your telephone keypad. Thank you. The first question comes from Luis Prieto. Please, sir, go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thanks for taking our questions. I had a couple of questions or groups of questions. The first one is I would like to get some detail on the amount invested in data center land at the end of Q1, what the expectation could be for the end of the year. In this regard, there has been a lot of press regarding the involvement of third parties in your potential projects. I would like to know in what terms and if you could update us in this sense. The second question is that we have been seeing a very strong organic top-line performance in Turner, as you described.
However, if I look at industry data for construction spend in non-residential settings in the U.S., growth is much more contained or even muted. Is there anything we can conclude from this divergence in terms of Turner's market share, competitive positioning? Thank you.
Thank you, Luis. Starting with data centers, right now we have around EUR 500 million invested, EUR 200 million last year, and approximately EUR 300 million from the beginning of the year. The intention is to continue investing throughout the year. Probably we'll add another EUR 300 million to this equation throughout the rest of the year. As we explained last year, our intention was to develop from scratch the land and making sure that we get the permits, connections, etc., so we could get all this land ready to build and obviously sign the leases with the hyperscalers.
In parallel, what we're doing is we did open a process to bring a co-investor with us because we are looking forward to putting a very strong platform together with a co-investor. That process is still ongoing. It's very close to a resolution, so probably we will be updating the market within the next, I would say, from now to the end of the first half. I think that we'll be able to give a solid update with a potential resolution. Until now, all of this is very confidential. As I said, our idea is to bring a 50% partner to develop what is considered the next stage of our strategy, which is the entire construction and operations post-signature with the hyperscaler. On the U.S. growth, I mean, as you saw in general, our backlog has grown 16%. That's year on year.
If you look more focused to the U.S., Turner has seen a record order intake of around 50% versus Q1 2024. I mean, if you just focus on Turner, 95% of our revenues in 2024-2025 are secured, and 50% of our 2026 revenues are secured as well. I'll move to Flatiron in a minute, but just to continue Turner, pretty much that growth has been seen through all the segments, right? Data centers have more than doubled, but the biopharma healthcare space has also seen, versus the 2024 last year, has seen a huge increase, almost doubling versus the same amount last year, right? We're seeing similar growth in education. We're seeing huge growth in semiconductors. In general, we are very, very, very, very comfortable.
When you look at, and your question was more about engineering and construction, when you look at Flatiron and Dragados, I mean, the company is seeing quite strong growth. I mean, we are very comfortable because most of the contracts that were won by Flatiron Dragados were collaborative. You are not seeing that in the books. You are not seeing most of that in our order book because when you win collaborative, you just get engineering and construction. As you develop those projects, you start getting the contract. The new awards during the period have come up to EUR 2.8 billion, which is significant. Now, what do we expect in the U.S. market and the perspective from Trump administration? I mean, we cannot discuss what is being pretty much published by our companies.
What we see is that there's a positive outlook for construction, especially in the high-tech sectors, data centers, semiconductors, aerospace, biopharma, that there's a lot of infrastructure programs like the investment in America, which is pretty much boosting construction in traditional advanced technology manufacturing. There's a 100% tax deduction for industrial fixed asset investments. There's an AI dominance strategy, which is pretty much promoting the expansion of AI via deregulation. On the other hand, there's a lot of investment in traditional infrastructure, mainly highways, bridges, and airports. There's also, as we've seen, a political shift in energy and technology. A lot of the renewables have lost its support, including hydrogen. There's also a national emergency declaration encouraging private investments in everything else: oil and gas, nuclear, geothermal, microgrid projects, right?
What's the impact that we're seeing and we're going to be seeing in ECS in the next months? First, a positive effect on our traditional projects: highways, bridges, airports, and rail, although rail is more locally funding versus federal funding. Huge investment in mains lanes, huge, and there's huge projects coming in the pipeline, all of those supported by federal funding mechanisms like PABs, TIFIA, which have not been removed. We are seeing faster project approvals, like the NEPA reforms for environmental processes and everything that I just said around the high-tech technology. I mean, we are seeing a way of remaining very optimistic on the U.S. market.
Thanks a lot.
Ladies and gentlemen, we remind you that if you wish to ask a question, please press star 5 on your telephone pad. Thank you. We have another question, and it comes from Álvaro Lenze. Please, sir, go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. This is Álvaro Lence from Alantra Equities. Just following up on the question on letting a partner into the data center venture, just to understand at what stage are you planning to let them in? Is it to help you develop up to ready to build or all the way up to cost of development, sorry, up to COD, and whether you expect to maintain a long-term holding in the projects to have sort of brownfield concessions there? The second question, if you could provide us some guidance on working capital for the rest of the year. The swing has been a little bit higher than we were expecting, so I do not know if you expect a significant reversal of that to, of course, nothing like we saw last year, but maybe a softer number for the year end. Thank you.
Thank you, Álvaro. Starting with data centers, we are currently developing in our portfolio 2.1 GW. We are looking for land plots of additional 5 GW, right? But so far, we have in our books committed or invested up to 2.1 GW. Some of that, we're about to sign an LOI, a letter of intent, or at least agreement. Some of that already has an LOI with us. Some of that is ready to build. Some of that is in the process to be developed. We have 2.1 GW in different stages, right? The idea would be sometime mid-2025 to bring a partner that is going to value our current portfolio, and the intention is to monetize 50% of the portfolio, right? We would stay 50%. We would monetize 50%.
Moving on, that partner will become, we will put the air platform, and it will be the platform, the one that will be developing all the, not just moving the current 2.1 GW into the next stage, which is basically construction operations, but also developing the future land. That's the intention. I mean, you will be hearing news in the first few months. On cash flow, the first thing that I would say is what we introduced in the presentation. In the last 12 months, the net operating cash flow was around EUR 400 million better than the same period before. This was mainly because of EUR 770 million better EBITDA, right? That was both Turner, [EMZ], and disconsolidation. The working capital was stable. There was an increased capital expenditure that was against us of around EUR 370 million.
If you compare Q1 net operating cash flow versus Q1 next year, it's better by EUR 118 million year on year if you adjust by the disconsolidation and removing the factoring, right? So comparable terms, EUR 118 million year on year. We are better than what we were Q1 last year, which we had a stronger reversal. When you look at the working capital in Q1, this is explained by a worse-on working capital of EUR 70 million in this, factoring that we reduced by EUR 168 million, and the rest is very consistent with revenue growth, right? That's analyzing the natural advance in Q1. What should we expect from the rest of the year? I mean, we are comfortable. We believe that we're going to have a strong cash flow as we had in 2024. I mean, at this stage, I wouldn't call it softer or worse.
I mean, I think we are in line to a positive 2025 cash flow.
Thank you.
We remind you that if you wish to ask a question, please press star 5 on your telephone keypad. Thank you. It seems that there are no further questions, so I will give back the floor to the management of ACS to close the meeting.
Okay. Thank you so much, everyone, for your time today. Of course, we are available for any question you want to follow up. Thanks again.