Good morning, everyone, and thank you for attending the 2025 results call of ACS Group. I'm joined by our Corporate General Manager, Ángel García Altozano, and our Chief Financial Officer, Emilio Grande. As usual, after the presentation, we'll host a Q&A session to provide you with any clarification that you may need. Those who are connected via our website can ask their questions through the established channel. Let's start with the first slide of our presentation. In 2025, the group delivered very strong operational and financial results, with solid growth in sales, backlog, and net profit, backed by robust cash flow generation. We're making solid progress in executing our strategy, increasingly leveraging our global footprint and engineering expertise to drive sustainable growth.
We continue to actively pursue highly attractive equity investments opportunities across both traditional and next-generation markets, generating long-term value for all our stakeholders. Let me give an overview of the key highlights for the period. Ordinary net profit reached EUR 857 million, up 25.3%, or 32.4% FX-adjusted, exceeding our top end of our revised guidance. On a reported basis, net profit stood at EUR 950 million. Sales and EBITDA were up by 20% and 20% respectively, driven by the robust momentum across all our segments. Operating margins improved as well across the group. Net operating cash flow reached EUR 2.2 billion in the last 12 months. This is up EUR 320 million, adjusted for factoring variations, highlighting the quality of our profit growth.
As a result of this strong cash flow generation, the group achieved a net cash position of EUR 17 million at the end of 2025. This is after allocating EUR 2.1 billion to strategic investments and shareholder remuneration. Strategic investments include EUR 564 million in Data Center projects, EUR 436 million of the Dornan acquisition, and EUR 200 million of the capital contribution to Abertis. In addition, EUR 448 million were allocated to shareholder remuneration. New orders during the year of EUR 62.5 billion, showing an accelerating growth trend, up approximately 27% FX-adjusted, resulting in a higher book-to-bill ratio of 1.3 x. Within the outstanding new orders figure, Digital Infrastructure represented approximately 28%, or EUR 17.6 billion, with growth of around 130% year-on-year, FX-adjusted.
The order backlog grew by 14.6% FX-adjusted, reaching EUR 92.9 billion, supported by sustained demand in Biopharma, Defense, Critical Minerals, and Data Centers. Looking ahead, we remain very confident in the group's outlook and set our ordinary net profit growth target of 20%-25% for 2026, up to EUR 1.17 billion, underpinned by strong fundamentals. Let's take a closer look at the group's consolidated performance for the period. Sales rose by 19.7% to EUR 49.8 billion, driven by the exceptional performance of Turner, which achieved approximately 34% organic growth or 40.3% FX-adjusted, particularly supported by Digital Infrastructure, Healthcare, and Education projects. This momentum was further enhanced by the integration of Dornan and the full consolidation of this since second quarter of 2024.
EBITDA increased by 25% to EUR 3.1 billion, with margin expansions across all segments and at overall group level. Profit before tax amounted to EUR 1.7 billion, up 67.3%. On a comparable basis, PBT grew by 24.8%, particularly fueled by Turner's outperformance and the solid evolution of FlatironDragados. We delivered a strong ordinary net profit growth of 25.3% year-on-year on a comparable basis, reaching EUR 857 million, above the top end of our full year guidance. Turning now to the ordinary net profit split, I would like to highlight the following. Turner delivered an outstanding performance, with its contribution rising 66.6% to EUR 549 million, driven by the strong growth in high-tech markets and improved margins.
CIMIC contributed EUR 199 million, supported by the strong growth in Data Centers, Biopharma, Healthcare, and Education, also the Natural Resources. Engineering & Construction recorded a very strong result, growing 35.7% year-over-year, reflecting a higher contribution from FlatironDragados and solid results in Hochtief Europe. Abertis delivered a resilient operational performance during the period, despite non-operational impacts. During the year, the group implemented efficiency measures involving EUR 32 million in restructuring costs, aimed at streamlining operations and unlocking synergies that will enhance performance in the coming years. Slide five highlights the group's strong and consistent cash flow generation. Net operating cash flow amounted to EUR 2.2 billion, supported by a robust EBITDA, uplift of 25%, and outstanding level of cash conversion.
Adjusted for factoring variations, the net operating cash flow increased by EUR 320 million. Building on this, the acceleration of cash flow generation in the fourth quarter further improved the previous quarter last twelve months figure of EUR 2 billion. We reached a net cash position as of December 2025 of EUR 17 million, showing an improvement of EUR 719 million since December 2024. This performance is primarily the result of the group's strong net operating cash flow, facilitating significant strategic capital allocation initiatives.
In the period, we have executed EUR 1.7 billion in financial investments, including EUR 564 million in Data Center projects, EUR 436 million for the Dornan acquisition, EUR 316 million of M&A, EUR 207 million in other net infrastructure equity investments, and EUR 200 million for the Abertis capital contribution. Financial divestments of EUR 1 billion, including the 50% sales of UGL Transport, the Data Center platform, 50% divestment, and the final settlement of ACS Industrial. Additionally, EUR 448 million of cash were allocated to shareholders' remuneration. Our disciplined approach to capital deployment supports our long-term growth strategy while maintaining a solid financial position. Moving on to slide seven. Our order backlog stands at an all-time high of EUR 92.9 billion as of December 2025.
This growth was underpinned by a very strong order intake of EUR 62.5 billion, up 26.6%, FX-adjusted, resulting in an improved book-to-bill ratio of 1.3 x. This very positive performance reflects the group's continued success in securing high-quality projects across strategic growth markets, particularly in Data Centers, Defense, Biopharma, Critical Minerals, and Nuclear. Notably, Digital Infrastructure now accounts for approximately 28% of new orders, up circa 130% year-on-year, FX-adjusted, driven by the strong, sustainable demand in Data Centers. We're also seeing strong traction in Germany, where our positioning allow us to benefit from the country's increased focus on infrastructure investment. New awards in Germany grew by approximately 41% year-on-year, reinforcing our ability to capture opportunities in this key market. In the following slide, we can see a selection of recent awards.
It is worth placing these projects in the broader context of the ACS Group strategy, where we have continued advancing to become a leader in rapidly expanding strategic growth verticals, including artificial intelligence, Digital and Tech sector, Energy, including nuclear, Critical Minerals, and Defense. This momentum builds on our long-established, locally embedded presence in core infrastructure markets in North America, Australia, and Europe, which remains the foundation of our competitive strength and our ability to scale into these next-generation markets as a life cycle partner. Let's start with the Digital Infrastructure and Advanced Tech sector, where we command a leading position. Growth in the global Data Center market remains extremely strong. Soaring demand for cloud services and AI is expected to quadruple DC and compute CapEx by 2035, boosted by the growth of generative AI and further cloud migration.
The group has the resources and capabilities as a firmly established global end-to-end solutions provider to meet this rising demand. During the period, we have been awarded several new large-scale Data Center projects. Among these new awards, we can find the announcement of the construction of the 902 MW Data Center complex in Wisconsin, which is part of the $500 billion Stargate program. Most recently, Turner was awarded a role in the delivery of the $10 billion, 1 GW D ata Center campus for Meta in Indiana. In Europe, Dornan was awarded the construction of a 160 MW Data Center in the Netherlands. This is the result of Turner's expansion strategy into Europe, with Dornan executing a project for recurring Turner client. We'll also be building a 58 MW Data Center in Malaysia for a long-standing repeat client.
Construction has already started for a Data Center in Alcalá, a joint collaboration with Dragados, Iridium, Turner, and SourceBlue participation in the context of the Data Center platform. Additionally, we have solid medium-term visibility via our order book and our expanding project pipeline in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Energy-related infrastructure represents another strategic growth vector for the group, with a structurally rising demand driven by the global energy and security of supply. ACS is strategically positioned across the full energy value chain, from generation and storage, to transmission and advanced technologies. With several decades of experience designing and building nuclear power plants and complex energy facilities worldwide for leading utilities, the group is well-placed to support the deployment of the next generation technologies, including small modular reactors, or SMRs, as well as new build, storage, and decommissioning projects.
This positions us in a market expected to exceed EUR 500 billion investment in Europe by 2050. At the beginning of 2026, an important strategic milestone was reached when we were selected as part of Amentum's global project delivery team for the Rolls-Royce SMR nuclear program. During the final quarter of 2025, we secured a major nuclear and civil works framework contract worth up to EUR 685 million, lasting up to 15 years, involving civil infrastructure works at the Sellafield nuclear site in the U.K. Turning to renewables, we continue to strengthen our market presence, particularly in Australia, where our companies have delivered more than 20 major renewable and storage projects.
Reflecting this momentum in new awards, CIMIC's UGL was selected for the Western Downs Stage 3 Battery project in Queensland, Australia, to construct a major renewable energy storage facility with energy storage capacity of 1,220 MWh. Let me turn now to critical minerals and natural resources, another strategic growth market for us. We're capitalizing on accelerating demand for critical minerals, driven by clean energy technologies, Digital Infrastructure, and Defense modernization. Leveraging the combined capabilities of Sedgman and Thiess, we have established a global position in minerals, processing and sustainable mining services across key commodities such as lithium, copper, rare earth, nickel, vanadium, uranium, and zinc. In December, the group expanded its partnership with Vulcan Energy through a significant cornerstone equity investment, while securing an end-to-end role in the development of its lithium production and processing infrastructure in Germany.
Under the agreement, we have also been appointed as EPCM contractor and named preferred supplier for the project's civil works. In addition, we have been awarded contract by Hindustan Zinc to support the delivery of India's first zinc tailing recycling facility. We were recently awarded the Mount Pleasant operation contract extension in New South Wales, Australia, to provide full mining services. Moving now to Defense, where infrastructure investment is expected to increase substantially worldwide. In Europe, major multi-year Defense investment plans, including in Germany, present substantial opportunities in Defense-related capital works and potentially via the public-private partnership model. In the U.S. and Australia, governments are also planning major increases in Defense spending over the next decade.
At the end of 2025, the group's Defense backlog stood at EUR 3.5 billion, which included our recently secured involvement in a major 10-year collaborative contract for the German Armed Forces in Hamburg, with a total project value of EUR 1 billion. Our North American civil business, FlatironDragados, being selected as one of the companies for a 10-year construction contract for the U.S. Air Force Civil Engineer Center. Other projects, including the construction of a major dry dock at Pearl Harbor for the U.S. Navy, works for the Royal Australian Air Force base in Queensland, and Defense infrastructure upgrades in Australia. In biopharma, health, and social infrastructure, we continue to hold leading positions with several significant new orders, such as, first, the New York Public Health Laboratory, consolidating the largest and diverse state public health laboratory in the U.S. under one roof.
The Regional One Health's Hospital campus, a once-in-a-generation investment to expand critical services and strengthen community access to care in Memphis. The Philadelphia Arena, including the construction management for the new state-of-the-art arena in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. Two major building contracts in Germany, a hospital new build project in Flensburg, the first one in Germany using integrated project delivery, and a PPP project for a research and administration building in Kiel. The group is also a global leader in transport and sustainable infrastructure, with a very positive outlook driven by several infrastructure stimulus packages. In Australia, we were awarded the Perth Airport new runway construction, as well as the Queensland Gateway to Bruce Upgrade. We secured the A59/A40 highway upgrade in Duisburg, Germany. Recently, we won the Battery Park Resiliency project, a $1.7 billion construction in New York.
In Sweden, we secured a EUR 1 billion high-speed rail project under collaborative model delivery, part of the East Link program. Let us now move into the performance by segments. On slide 10, we begin with Turner, which is delivering exceptional results, consolidating its leadership in strategic sectors. Sales grew by 33.9%, reaching EUR 25.8 billion, mainly driven by organic growth across Data Center projects, as well as solid growth in areas such as Healthcare, Education, Sports, and Airports. This solid performance was further supported by the contribution from Dornan, whose exceptional performance was up 70% in the year. Profit before tax increased to EUR 921 million, representing an outstanding increase of more than 61%.
This was supported by continued margin expansions of approximately 80 basis points to 3.6%, reflecting Turner's successful strategy, focused on advanced technology projects in line with the group's strategic objectives. Net operating cash flow increased by EUR 523 million to an exceptional EUR 1.2 billion. Net cash as of December 25 was EUR 3.3 billion, up EUR 179 million, even after the acquisition of Turner. Turner's commercial strengths are demonstrated by its new orders of EUR 33.6 billion in the year, an increase of 44.2% in FX-adjusted driving record, order backlog to EUR 37.7 billion.
Moving on to our operations in the Asia Pacific region, we turn to CIMIC, where sales registered strong growth in the strategic areas, such as advanced technology, healthcare, and Defense, and were 11.2% higher, supported by the full consolidation of this and despite the winding down of large transport infrastructure projects. EBITDA margins grew by approximately 30 basis points, underpinned by strong contribution from high-tech jobs across both UGL and Leighton Asia. Ordinary profit before tax increased by 12.3% year-on-year, FX-adjusted to EUR 473 million. Attributable net profit grew by 1.4%, FX-adjusted year-on-year. Net operating cash flow before factoring grew by EUR 43 million, supporting a strong EUR 366 million net cash improvement, which also includes investment of 50% of UGL Transport and the Data Center project.
Our order backlog was solid, reaching EUR 21.8 billion, up 6% year-on-year, adjusted on a comparable basis. New orders were up 5.6%, FX-adjusted, with particularly strong growth in Data Center, Defense, and Critical Minerals. Turning now to Engineering & Construction segment on slide 12. We can see solid growth, with consolidated sales increasing 15.1% year-on-year, FX-adjusted, to over EUR 10.6 billion, driven by the strong performance in North America and the robust contributions from both Dragados and Hochtief Engineering and Construction. EBITDA margin increased by 53 basis points to 5.9%, supported by significant contribution from FlatironDragados. Ordinary profit before tax grew significantly by 45.2%, FX-adjusted to EUR 275 million, and a strong cash conversion with net cash position up EUR 118 million.
Engineering construction backlog rose by 10%, FX-adjusted to EUR 30.1 billion, reflecting a strong order intake of EUR 13.6 billion, with notable momentum in sustainable mobility and transportation infrastructure. Looking ahead, the outlook remains very positive. As I highlighted, we're particularly well positioned to benefit from the infrastructure investment plan in Germany. Continuing now with the infrastructure segment on slide 13. Iridium's increased its sales by 45%, driven by the additional contribution of the A13, the financial close of the SR- 400 in Georgia, and general positive performance across operating entities. As you might know, we have been recently pre-qualified for the I-77 in North Carolina. This adds to the previous two pre-qualifications of the I-25 in Georgia and the I-24 in Tennessee. Abertis' recurring business showed growth above 6%. All the financial contribution was impacted by non-operating results.
Abertis distributed a dividend of approximately EUR 600 million in the second quarter of 2025. In the next slide, we provide, for your reference, a breakdown of the invested capital and valuation as of December 25 for the portfolio of all assets in our greenfield platforms. Among others, we are now including valuation of our stake in the Data Center platform, as well as the average value that our research analysts are assigning to our SR-400 project. On the next slide, we take a more detailed look at the Abertis numbers. Traffic grew by 2.1%, supported by a strong performance of heavy vehicle traffic, we saw strong results, particularly in Spain, Chile, and France.
On a like-for-like basis, the company delivered robust revenue and EBITDA growth of 4.5% and 6.2% respectively, underpinned by the geographical diversification of the portfolio and inflation link tariffs. Regarding portfolio development, as you know, Abertis acquired 51.2% stake in the A63 toll road in France. Abertis was awarded a 21-year extension and tariff adjustment at Fluminense and acquired the remaining 49.9% stake in Túnels de Barcelona i Cadí. In Chile, the Santiago Los Vilos concession began operations. Abertis has improved its liquidity and financial strength, with net debt set at EUR 22.7 billion. On slide 16, we show a breakdown of key figures by country for Abertis' portfolio. As with every year, we dedicate a brief section to reviewing some strategic updates.
This slide highlights the progress we're making across our strategic growth verticals, both from a developer and a contractor perspective. We have already discussed many of these key milestones in the earlier slides, let me quickly go over the key points. In Digital, we continue leading in Data Centers. The backlog has grown at circa 70% giga over the past three years. Some important recent awards include a one-year award project from Meta in India, announced only a few weeks ago. As a developer, 100 of our Data Center platform sites are now grid connected, with around 80% power supply already secured. We are in advanced negotiations for lease agreements covering 150 MW IT in the first instance, we're targeting to sign the first lease in the first half of the year.
In Defense, we're on track to deliver the 2030 revenue ambition of EUR 10 billion, driven by major wins like the German Armed Forces campus and the long-term contract for the U.S. Air Force. We're also seeing strong progress in critical metals. We recently acquired an engineering company in the U.S. Our participation in Vulcan is another crucial strategic step. Let me stress again the delivery partner role of our consortium with Amentum on Rolls-Royce Nuclear SMR program. These wins reflect our decisive progress in reinforcing our end-to-end leadership and leveraging our investment opportunities. On slide 19, we take a deeper look at the outlook for AI-driven Data Center growth. ACS is strongly positioned to benefit from rising data center infrastructure investment, underpinned by sustained structural demand. Market fundamentals continue to accelerate, and hyperscaler demand provides multi-billion, multi-year visibility.
Our global Data Center intake has more than doubled in 2025, up to EUR 17 billion. Finally, the AI revolution is not only strengthening our backlog and growth prospects, it's also enhancing our core capabilities and opening new growth avenues for ACS. Before we move to the conclusion, this slide delivers a simple yet powerful message. We have already achieved in 2025 our key 2024 CMD goals for 2026, one year ahead of schedule. Revenue and EBITDA have both reached or exceeded the goals we set for 2026, while the net operating cash flow generated between 2024 and 2025 already exceeds the target set for the full three-year period. To conclude our review of the full year 2025 results, let me highlight the key achievements of the group.
We deliver strong operational performance, with sales reaching EUR 49.8 billion, up 19%, 7% year-on-year, an ordinary net profit of EUR 857 million, up 25.3%, and exceeding the top end of our guidance. The group demonstrated outstanding cash generation, with net operating cash flow of EUR 2.2 billion, which in turn supported net financial investments of EUR 1.7 billion. Our order backlog stands at record high of EUR 92.9 million, underpinned by EUR 62.5 billion in new orders, up 26.9% if it's adjusted, including EUR 17.6 billion in digital infra order intake. It's also worth highlighting the progress of our Data Center development platform.
Our partnership with BlackRock's GIP to develop more than 1.7 GW worldwide, was a major milestone that reinforced our leadership in one of the fastest-growing global markets. Finally, we remain confident in our ability to continue executing our proven strategy. For 2026, we're setting an ordinary net profit growth target of 20%-25%, up to EUR 1.07 billion. Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, we remain focused on our strategic growth markets and disciplined capital allocation. As discussed, we see significant infrastructure investments opportunities and continue to pursue bolt-on acquisitions to strengthen our engineering capabilities and long-term growth prospects. We're well positioned to continue delivering sustainable growth and attractive shareholder returns. Thank you again for joining us today. Now we look forward to your questions.
Hello. Hello, Luis Prieto from Kepler Cheuvreux. I had three questions, if I could, please. The first one is, we're seeing the share prices of both stocks doing beautifully, and I just wanted to ask you, to what extent it would be tempting for you to maybe reduce the stake in Turner through a listing in order to upstream monies and pay for development and investments at ACS level? Or, for example, do a reduction in the Hochtief stake and, with the same purpose and increase investments. The second question, we're seeing the same assets held for sale on the balance sheet, in energy. They've been there for a while now. Any updates of how those disposals are evolving and when we should expect outcomes, news?
Finally, referring to one of the things you were commenting before, you have visibility in your order book until some point in 2028, but you make reference to another, to a pipeline beyond that, which is obviously essential to sustain the valuations and the expectations that you have for earnings in Data Centers. Can you give us an order of magnitude of that pipeline beyond the order book that you might have over the today to 2030 period? Thank you.
Thank you so much, Luis. Let me start. We do not have plans to reduce our shareholding in Turner so far, right now, or to reduce in Hochtief. Let me take the chance to speak about the way we see the valuation of our share. I get back to our investors day at the end of last year. First of all, we have two main businesses, right? The one that is visible through our EBITDA, that's supported by the growth of Turner, of future growth in Germany and Hochtief, and the performance of CIMIC.
What we are seeing is two main things, without getting into a lot of the details: a Turner that continues growing, a Turner that before 2020 was giving EUR 350 million PBT, and right now this year, has delivered EUR 1.45 billion. With a guidance of up to 30%, which would be around EUR 1.34 billion in 2026, which we consider very conservative, right? The reason why we cannot increase is obviously, because we are taking into account a lot of the planning. We rely on hyperscalers, we rely on clients, and we are in that planning mode, and we need to land on something before reaching a resolution.
The U.S. dollars, with all our assumptions, imply that it will continue to go in a devaluation mode. That's on the business, right? Turner has multiplied by around 3.5x in a few years, we believe that we'll continue growing at a very significant path. Not only has grown 70% $25, we're already giving a guidance of 30%, we believe that we can double Turner. The question is in how many years, certainly in a reasonable short to medium-term time. We do have the multipliers of Turner, right? Turner has a significant portion of its backlog in Data Centers.
We are seeing that our peers in Data Center space are at more than 30 times EBITDA, between 20 to more than 30x. Average consensus for Turner is way below that, right? The rest of the business in Turner goes through semiconductors, batteries, biopharma, and other sectors that will continue improving margins. In Data Centers, we gave a feature for Turner of reaching revenue just in Data Centers around $25 billion by 2030. That's the business, right? We see Germany growing, and Defense growing, and we're not including any of these verticals that we're working right now, because we do consider that the real value will be seen medium to long term, nuclear, critical metals, et cetera.
We believe on the share and the share valuation. What the share is not reflecting, for obvious reasons, is the assets, because that's not reflected in the EBITDA. A lot of what we're doing right now, it's investing in the assets, right? Data Center platform, the ACS Data Center platform, additional to the big one with BlackRock, greenfield, Abertis growth, and not Abertis growth just on inorganic M&A, but the organic M&A and the renegotiation of a lot of the contracts that we will provide some visibility this year, right? What we're doing, Critical Metals, Industrial, Energy, et cetera. We believe that the share will continue to reflect the value of all of these.
Right now, we are not taking the view that it's the right time to sell anything, basically. Two, asset for sales. I mean, the reality is that there's a combination of facts here, right? One is, from a net operating net cash flow basis, in the capital markets, they were always talking about approximately EUR 1.5 billion net operating cash flow. Post-dividend, EUR 600 million in dividends or shareholder remuneration, we had EUR 900 million net for acquisitions, basically, or investments. Now, that EUR 1.5 has ended up being EUR 2.2 this year, EUR 2.1 last year. Basically, we're talking about EUR 1.4 billion-EUR 1.5 billion firepower per year net of shareholder remuneration, right?
If you multiply that by five from now to 2030, you are significant firepower for investments. There's a strategic piece that we're not so much in a hurry to divest some of the Industrial assets. Plus, we want to make sure that they perform in the right way to maximize value, right? There's a combination of both things. Your third question was about the pipeline and beyond. You saw on the screen we are close to EUR 93 billion backlog. Most of our projects, and this has been the real change of strategy in the last four years, by moving from being a commodity in construction to being an end-to-end service provider, most of our contracts are not low-price, lump sum RFPs. They come at the back of a long negotiating process, design, planning, and working with our clients.
there's approximately EUR 25 billion that are not reflected in the backlog. We are currently working with our clients. Out of the EUR 25 billion, there's EUR 18 billion in Turner, approximately $22 billion at Turner, and out of which, there's approximately a little bit more than half of it that is Data Centers. All of that contribute to our visibility in the medium term, and how comfortable we are with our potential, I mean, our potential guidance. That we believe, not only at Hochtief, but ACS is conservative, but we need to see how a lot of these projects land and when they do land. Thank you.
Hi, this is Álvaro Lenze from Alantra Equities. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on Turner. I see you reported over EUR 3 billion in net cash. I just was wondering whether Turner needs so much cash to operate, and what would your policy on business cross-financing each other, or you moving cash flow to the headquarters in the future could be? Just to understand how your reported group net cash position is fully available for investments. The second question would be on the timing and magnitude of the new cycles.
Just wondering whether you see something like Defense or nuclear reactors or Critical Minerals potentially becoming as big as the data center investment cycle is likely going to be, or if it's just long-term, but probably more spaced out and not as big as the current investment is? Thank you.
Thank you. Starting with Turner. The reason why Turner holds so much cash, and we're not taking it out of Turner, is because of two reasons. The first one is, bonding needs, right? In order to operate, I mean, Turner is reaching the $30 billion revenues just in the U.S., and that requires bonding and requires security and making sure that you have the right, collateral indemnity in the U.S. That is a big driver of keeping that cash in Turner. Obviously, it's well, I mean, above what they need. The other thing is, for us, it's very important that Turner continues growing. For Turner to continue growing, there's a few strategies that we're going to put in place.
The first one is we need to continue adding engineering capabilities to Turner, number one. The good thing is that right now, with AI, you can escalate that very, very fast, but it will require some investments. The other one is the modularization strategy at Turner, because that's the future of construction, so there's additional investments that we're gonna be doing in that space. Let's preserve the cash because Turner will need some of that for investments to continue to grow. The good thing about Turner is what they have demonstrated with Dornan is that they can multiply by three the value of one company in almost a year, right? We're quite confident that is a very good place to allocate capital. Your second question was about the new cycle.
Let's go through each one of them. Nuclear. Yes, Nuclear will be like Data Centers, but more long-term, right? We are not expecting to see. If we want to be in the long term and creating another cycle like Data Centers, we'll need to wait, right? It's a long term, it's very high-tech oriented. You need a lot of engineering, and you need to be from the very beginning, developing that part, right? It's a long term. We won't see anything in the PNL probably in the short term, but certainly we are creating a lot of value. Nuclear, it's a very important part of the future, not just of AI, but in global, of energy. Defense. Defense, two things can happen.
The first one is we keep a Defense 1.0, which is basically infrastructure. We expect that to continue growing, right? The EUR 800 billion of Germany starts being allocated. Last year, they spent EUR 74 billion. 2026, we're expecting EUR 127 billion. They start allocating. You start seeing that. I mean, Hochtief has doubled, now tripling backlog. Will continue growing at the back of that. Same thing in Australia. We need to still see how it's gonna develop some of the U.K., U.S., Australia initiatives they have in Australia. They are allocating like around EUR 40 billion in the next 5 years. Hasn't been allocated yet. We have North America, where we continue. Infrastructure 1.0 will not generate a cycle like Data Centers, right?
It will allow us to grow at a very good pace, but it will not be a Data Center cycle unless we jump into Defense 2.0. That's something that, without getting into the more radical part of Defense, but the dual use technology, that's something that we're analyzing, and we haven't made any decision yet. It's easy for us as we do the infrastructure and client request for the full integration, not just the civil building component of it, but we're analyzing what to do with that. Critical metals, I do think that it can be a good cycle. I don't dare to say as good as Data Centers. It pretty much depends on, right now, the rare earth initiative of the U.S., how serious is it? A very important part.
A lot of the copper projects in South America that they are going to track. Obviously, lithium and batteries involvement, right? Depend on those three variables, it can be a very good cycle as well. Right now, we're not seeing that reflect in our balance sheet because it's pure engineering, what we're doing at this stage. Once we have engineering done, we jump into the PCM part of it, which is where the revenues and the EBITDA is, not in the engineering. That's what is not reflected in our, in our PNL.
Hi, Álvaro Navarro from Bestinver. I have two questions. The first one about the dividend policy. After the strong results release, and following that Hochtief increase by 26% its dividend, are you considering to revisit your dividend policy and go up from the around EUR 2 per share right now?
The second one is about Thiess. I think that Thiess year you have the possibility to execute the put option over the remaining 40%. Is Thiess a possibility, or are you managing other alternatives? Thank you.
Thank you, Álvaro. Starting with dividend policy. I mean, we always, we're always proud of being a yield plus growth company, right? We offer the two of those. The yield, because traditionally we have always had a very good dividend policy, traditionally. But in growth, because right now we are in all the, vertical, I mean, with high growth and high tech, and we want to make sure that we take advantage of being or becoming a leader in those verticals. That's why we are cautious with the dividend policy. Having said that, it's true, we are growing a lot, and yes, there's cash available, so we haven't landed in any conclusion, but most likely we'll increase our dividend policy up above the $2 per share this year. To how much, we are analyzing.
On the Thiess, we cannot execute the put until the end of Thiess year, 2026, with the cash flow being paid in January 27th. If there was an opportunity to acquire in advance, we would take it. That doesn't depend on us, it depends on our partner.
Hi, Juan, it's Victor from Investing. Congrats for the results. I have 3 questions. The first one is on CIMIC. When do you expect a rebound on the cash flows at CIMIC after the risking of the backlog? The second one is going to be, you can confirm at the end of the year, a capital market day, in order to provide three years guidance for the group. Finally, what is your expectations about sorry, the client that is, Data Centers to be commissioned in the half of the year, in the initial conversations, how you feel about that? Thank you.
Starting with CIMIC. What's happening in CIMIC, and that's a difference versus North America, Europe, and the rest of the geographies, is that a lot of the high-tech projects, energy projects, industrial projects are replacing civil and more traditional projects, right? We are building a lot of the additional backlog in Europe on top of the civil. That hasn't been reduced. In the case of North America, in the case of Turner, residential has disappeared, commercial office space has gone down significantly in the last four years.
The high tech, it's so big, and the advanced technology, which account right now for 60% of the backlog of Turner, that, I mean, has replaced part of the old market, has exceeded well in advance and above. In the case of CIMIC, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland has reduced significantly, tremendously, the amount of expenditure in transport and civil, right? Which were the big jobs. West Gate coming to an end, Crossrail coming to an end, all the WestConnexes, the Northwest Rail, the Western Sydney Project, all the rail level crossing programs in Victoria, and so on, and on, and on, right? All of them are gone. Each one of these jobs were like EUR 5 billion, right?
It's very difficult to replace with transmission lines, substations, energy plants, renewables, Data Centers, all that plan. The problem is that we are growing, and all those areas, CIMIC, UGL, Leighton Asia, they are growing significantly, even Thiess, but not to the extent that they can replace those projects. Plus, those projects, they are collaborative. They do not have big advance payments. Right now we are, as we finalize those projects, we've been contributing... That 10% advance payment that we took 5 years ago, we are pretty much spending right now. You see that unwinding of cash at CIMIC not being replaced by the new project, right? That's the issue. Now, eventually, those projects will finally be done, which we are not far away.
I mean, there's only two to go out of nine, right? It's a very good position to be, but I mean, so it will happen soon. Will that be in 2026 or 2027? I mean, we'll see. On the Capital Markets Day, yes, we're going to have a Capital Markets Day like the one we had in 2024, not like the Investor Day we had at the peak, at the end of last year. We haven't confirmed the date. Don't take me on the month, most likely the end of October, but not. It will be confirmed eventually. On Alcalá de Henares, I'm going to take the chance to give an update on the Data Center platform, okay?
Alcalá de Henares, which is around 20 MW, utility, like 14, 18 MW, that will be commercialized and in operations, or at least service to commence operations by before the end of the year, Alcalá. We will have additional 250 MW, IT, before the end of the year, commercialized, probably North America, beginning of construction. I think that's a reasonable number. Obviously, that will, only those, once they are commercialized, that will justify in excess of the value of the price paid by our partner for the platform.
Thank you. That's time for the questions from the other side. Let's start because some of the analysts and investors that have asked about clarification on the guidance. Regarding the guidance, one is: Are we using exchange for U.S. dollar stable or devaluation of U.S. dollar or what it? Regarding also the guidance, what about the free cash flow? The operating free cash flow has been significantly higher. Marcin Wojtal from BofA is asking us if this EUR 1.5 billion free cash flow per annum could be in the lower side, and we could upgrade that.
On the U.S. dollar devaluation, one of the reasons why our guidance is conservative, one of the reasons, is because we are assuming that the U.S. dollar will continue to go south, and that's reflected in our guidance for the year. That's the most logical, I mean, and reasonable assumption at Thiess stage. On the free cash flow, we prefer to be prudent when it comes to the free cash flow. It's true that we, in the capital markets day, we spoke about the EUR 1.5 billion. That has ended up being EUR 2.1 and EUR 2.2 respectively. If the market continues to grow, I mean, we certainly, those are the kind of levels that we can expect.
All our plan, all our capital allocation, all our firepower is based on a EUR 1.5 billion, right? To make sure, because we want to have also I mean, a more conservative approach to factoring, to confirming, to that. I mean, we want to make sure that we're cautious in keeping our cash flow as clean as possible. Basically, I don't dare to give a forecast about the net operating cash flow. Obviously, growth typically drives a high net operating cash flows, again, our firepower is based on a lower amount of the EUR 1.5.
Regarding that, there's some questions about our capital allocation strategy, especially on the infra assets. Particularly, Dario Maglione from BNP Paribas, is asking us about an update on the status of SR-400, the project, the managed lane in Atlanta, also, what is the overview on our capital allocation strategy in these particular assets?
I get back to the investor date at the end of last year, right? Let's assume that we are able to generate EUR 1.5 billion. Again, we are way above that at this stage, but all our numbers have been run with that scenario. That post shareholders' remuneration, we would have a net of EUR 900 million. From now to 2030, we multiply by five, so that's EUR 4.5 billion, and we still, out of the EUR 3 billion, the EUR 2 billion-EUR 3 billion in non-core assets that we could divest, that we did announce in 2024 in our capital markets day, we have divested EUR 1.5 billion. There's EUR 1.5 billion left. All of that comes up to EUR 6 billion.
What do we want to do with those EUR 6 billion, right? There's upside because the, I mean, this year we had EUR 700 million upside to that amount. First, we want to spend in greenfield projects, managed lanes. EUR 400 million. We got pre-qualified in the I-25 in Georgia. We got pre-qualified in the I-24 in Tennessee. We recently got pre-qualified in the I-77 in North Carolina. There's 2 projects to go, the I-285 West in Georgia and the other one in Virginia. That's an important part. The other part is Data Centers. We have the first platform that we signed with BlackRock GIP.
We have the ACS Data Center platform, and we do have assets, big assets out of the first platform, that we are working on them to secure the power and to pursue commercialization. We're looking at other opportunities, like in critical metals, like we did in Vulcan, in Europe, and other potential opportunities in critical metals, but also in the energy space. I mean, a big part of that is going to greenfield. We have another EUR 1.5 billion that probably will go to M&A, and that M&A could bring Abertis, could bring bolt-on acquisitions for some of the things that I said before, to enforce tunnel engineering and other capabilities. We are comfortable in general, in the capital allocation.
There's a question from Marcin as well, from BofA Securities, regarding Abertis. Do you consider Abertis' EUR 600 million annual dividend to be sustainable for the next 5-10 years? What is your idea on Abertis' strategy?
Abertis is, if everything goes, as per the plan, we hope to give a very good picture of the organization. First of all, let's get back to a few numbers of Abertis. Back in 2018, the EBITDA of Abertis was around EUR 3.5 billion, we lost EUR 1 billion in PPPs that expired, right? That's basically, it was EUR 2.5 billion. This year, we have EUR 4.4 billion EBITDA, and our prospects post France, are right now between EUR 4.4 billion and EUR 4.9 billion post Sanef, right?
When you look at some of the ratios, I think we have given some of these ratios in the past, the net debt ratio, pretty much versus EBITDA, I think that has gone from 6.6 to 5.2, I think we gave that figure. Our backlog EBITDA versus the net debt has gone up from 3.4 to 5.8, right? That gives you a view of how we are managing Abertis in the last years.
The most important thing in Abertis is that there are three things going on right now, or two: the renegotiation of further contracts, and we will give transparency this year of very important increases of the overall EBITDA of Abertis at the back of these renegotiations and a couple of transactions that we're pursuing with Abertis. We hope that these transactions, or the combination of these transactions, will give enough visibility, not just to the market, but to the rating agencies, that our FFO versus net debt ratio, that has been increasingly from seven to very high numbers, that is the main restriction to the dividend distribution, will be unlocked, and we'll get back to normal dividends.
That, yes, will confirm that not only that EUR 600 million is sustainable on time, but will have growth to the future and will increase the valuation of Abertis significantly, which right now is like the ugly duck for all the analysts, right? That will be a nice one eventually.
I'll change the topic. As Graham Hunt from Jefferies is asking about, you know, the environment we have in Data Centers, market, the competitive environment you're encountering as you assess additional Data Centers development opportunities. Are you seeing any difference by region, Europe, Australia, or of course, U.S. market? What is our position on that front? How we can be as competitive as we are demonstrating?
Different answers to this question, which is a very important topic. In general terms, we continue seeing huge investment, and we do see very important investments in CapEx. More importantly, the hyperscalers, because they need to plan the next three to five years ahead, they are giving a lot of visibility of what's coming. From the $420 billion that were spent in Data Centers in 2024, they are expecting altogether to reach $1.1 trillion per year in 2029, right? That's the kind of amount we're talking about in the market. There's pros and cons in terms of competitiveness, right?
The pro is that right now, we believe that we're more competitive than before because before we were, for every 20 MW D ata Center, we were competing with 14 consortiums. For the 2 GW to 4 GW, there is no competition, right? There's little competition. It's more open book. It's more about the hyperscalers know exactly the price of these things and what competitive looks like, right? They don't need to put long-term RFPs. That's a waste of time for them, right? What we need to make sure is we compete against ourselves and what hyperscalers can do, which is the bar, which is a very high bar, by the way, because they have a tremendous capability. They could do it themselves.
If they use us or another contractor company, it's because they can do it in the same way or better than what they can, right? That's competition is that's one factor. On the other side, what we are seeing is that time is of the essence, but every year is more of the essence. What hyperscalers want to see is a huge reduction in the timing of construction of these data centers. That's why we are investing in modular construction, and that's why we continue to increase the timing and therefore making us more competitive. In terms of U.S. versus Europe versus Australia, completely different markets.
U.S. is dominated by the fact that the U.S. is a superpower in AI, that they are training the models, that they have all a kind of data storage, and most of the American companies, they rule the world when it comes to data, right? That's why you're seeing the 2 GW, the 4 GW. Anything you do in the U.S., you commercialize very quick, right? There's a huge, very liquid market for this from hyperscalers, but also medium companies, small companies. There's a lot of AI processing and inference. There's a lot of AI training. There's a lot of data storage, and there's a race to become the most powerful data storage, hyperscaler. Europe is very slow, and Europe is very slow because right now, there's a debate about what a data center can provide.
There's always a mismatch between direct and indirect value. Direct value, there's always a combination of high energy, high water, low employment. Indirectly, every time you have a megawatts of AI processing inference or ecosystem, you build a huge ecosystem of startups around data center. Some examples like Virginia, when they got to the 2.7 GW, 2.4 GW capacity, I think that they created 10,000 new startups as a consequence. Even some of the big corporations in the U.S. moved into Virginia. The same thing in other places. Something similar happened in Ireland, that plus tax incentives a few years ago. You will be seeing that in Europe.
More and more and more countries, they see data centers as strategic national investments, but that takes time to get to that conclusion, right? Plus, it warns you, I mean, that delays things a little bit, but it will come. Having said that, Europe is not training AI models yet. Europe doesn't have big hyperscalers yet. They are the American ones mainly investing in Europe, and the power in Europe is very much intervened and has some restrictions. Different country to country, but in the same line, right? That doesn't help to the development of more Data Centers in the short term. It will come. Not as big, but it certainly will come, and the industry will come to Europe.
Asia Pacific, we've seen that booming. Obviously, they are not training, except China, that I exclude China for now. They are not training big AI models. They do not have that storage. Certainly, Latin Asia has been super active. Out of the market we currently have, there's like EUR 2 billion just in Asia Pacific, without including Australia. Australia, it's going slow moving into Data Centers, but we're seeing progress in the country towards Data Centers.
Yeah, yeah. In that sense, Dario Maglione is asking about the Data Centers in Spain. I'll look, because he asked that, "As we plan to have around 800 MW of Data Centers through our JV platform by 2032, how strong is the demand for data centers in Spain? Enough to absorb this amount?
P otentially, yes. P otentially, yes. That depends. I n Spain, w hat I do think is going to happen is hyperscalers first will fold their demand with their current developments. Once, they go beyond that, then they will start asking for additional capacity, and that's where a lot of that excess capacity will be used on a large scale. I'm not talking about ours, I'm talking about Spain, the countries in general, right? B ut there's demand for a medium companies that right now they are not doing their own development, but they are looking for, I mean, megawatts of, of data centers available. I do think that the restriction is not so much on the demand, the restriction is more on the power. When we speak about AI or inference demand, that's different, right?
That's a very more, a more unique energy demand. It's not like pure data storage, it's more about inference, it's more about AI processing. I think that that will take more time in Spain versus the rest of Europe or the US.
Final questions coming from Filipe Leite, from CaixaBank BPI. Regarding the platform, the Data Centers platform, he has two specific questions. One is regarding the commercialization. Any news about this, the commercialization on Data Centers for this year? The second is much more technical. He's asking about why the cash in from the recent agreement with BlackRock GIP, is lower than EUR 500 million we announced, which has been accounted for EUR 428 million.
Okay, I'll start with the first one, and then I will add to Thiess, and I will ask Emilio to add anything he considers. Well, on the first one, I already said before 2026, we expect to have for in Spain 14 MW IT, which is basically like 20 commercialized and built. In the U.S., like 250, and I believe that those could be conservative figures. Then we'll continue adding that every year. When it comes to the platform, I think that is just the inflow versus the outflow net. Emilio, do you want to add?
Yes, correct. The net number was estimated to be EUR 500 when we announced the transaction last year. It's slightly below that, the net number, EUR 860 minus EUR 400 something. The only reason is because of the terms of the agreement and the exact amount of investment as of the date of closing. That's the gap or the difference between the EUR 500 and the actual cash in net.
Thank you. Final question is regarding, as you mentioned, we are pursuing some managed lanes opportunities in U.S. Could you clarify why the consortium structure for the different bits are different from what we have been doing in the past? Or why differs? What is the reason that we have different partners?
No, I mean, we have only two consortiums. The main one with Meridiam and Acciona, now, I mean, we won with them 400, and we are pre-qualified in the I-285 and the 824, with them in Georgia and Tennessee, respectively. In the case of North Carolina, Kiewit has been a traditional partner of Flatiron in North Carolina. I mean, as you know, in terms of micro figures, Kiewit is the largest civil contractor company in the U.S. We are the second largest, but in North Carolina in particular, we are both very strong in the lead positions, and we have been traditional partners. Some of these conversations were back before our consortium with Acciona.
It's just an specific situation in North Carolina.
There's no more questions from the web.
Any further question? Okay, excellent. Thank you very much everyone for coming and joining on the phone. Look forward to any question on ongoing basis over the next days or weeks. Thanks a lot.