Earnings Call: Q1 2021

May 13, 2021

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us in this first quarter results presentation. We will briefly analyze the key aspects of our results, which have been recently released. Then we look forward to any questions you might have. As you all know, COVID-19 has had a big impact across the world, affecting our health, our behaviors, and global businesses and economies. In this situation, ACS's operations have shown good resilience in practically all business areas except for Abertis. In this first quarter of 2021, the recovery trend continues, especially in the bidding process, where we see more activity, as we will detail later on. To analyze the first quarter 2021, we are referring growth rates to the 2020 pro forma figures, where we have reclassified industrial services as discontinued operation after the recent agreement with TransDigm. Also, we have adjusted contribution from TIS, accounting only the current 50% stake as equity method in both years. At the operating level, sales decreased by 10.6% to EUR 6.4 billion, affected by currency headwinds, especially the US dollar, that has depreciated by 9% versus the euro. FX adjusted, sales went down by 7.5%. The backlog stood at EUR 63 billion, growing 3.1%, supported by strong recovery of orders intake. EBITDA reached EUR 329 million, declining 4.3% and improving its operating margin in America and Australia. Excluding Abertis' contribution, it decreased by only 1.2%. EBIT decreased by 7.9% and reached EUR 205 million. The group's net profit reached EUR 195 million. Not considering Abertis, it would have been 8.5% higher than in 2020 comparable period. As of March 31, 2021, the group had EUR 3.7 billion of net debt, EUR 1.3 billion higher than a year ago. The significant reduction of factoring of more than EUR 800 million and EUR 662 million cash reclassification from our industrial services business, as asset held for sale, explain this increase. Our business strategy has focused on strengthening our presence in main regions where we operate, maintaining a balanced distribution of activity. Currently, 90% of our sales come from our main three markets, 67% from North America, this is the U.S. and Canada, over 19% from Australia, and 11% from Spain. The remaining 10% come from Germany, 3%, the rest of Europe, another 3%, and Asia and South America will represent less than 4% of the overall sales. Continuing with Q1 performance, North American market reached EUR 3.8 billion sales. The significant FX impact from the U.S. dollar depreciation, plus the slowdown of the activity compared to a strong first quarter of 2020, not yet affected by the COVID-19, explain the year-on-year sales decrease. Actually, current sales are 3% higher than the first quarter of 2019 level. In Australia, total output remained stable in local currency, while in Spain had a sales slight decrease of 1.2% coming from construction activities, which could not be entirely offset by the increase in facility management. In construction, sales reached EUR 5.9 billion, with an EBITDA of EUR 313 million. Margin over sales increased by 30 basis points versus Q1 2020, thanks to an improved operating efficiency in North America and Australia. Meanwhile, in concessions, EBITDA dropped to negative EUR 2 million from positive EUR 13 million in the previous year, driven by Abertis contribution, which was still affected by traffic restrictions due to COVID-19. Finally, services, where sales recovered after the end of lockdown in 2020. Likewise, operating margins returned to regular levels pre-COVID. Net profit by activities. Construction net profit practically unchanged, amounting to EUR 73 million. Concession net profit was a negative EUR 4 million, following the EUR 9 million reduction in Abertis contribution. Industrial services reached EUR 110 million, 8% lower than previous year due to the impact of the pandemic. A EUR 7 million contribution from services recovering from COVID impact, plus positive results from corporations due to a non-ordinary financial result, which last year contributed negatively. Overall, the group's reported net profit as of March 2020 amounted to EUR 195 million, 3.8% higher year-on-year. Let's summarize Abertis performance in the first quarter. Traffic was still affected by mobility restrictions, but benefiting from Abertis' diversified portfolio. You can see the traffic evolution by country in this slide. Traffic recovery is expected once restrictions due to COVID are relaxed over the next months. Abertis operating revenues went up by 2% and EBITDA up by 6%, mainly due to the full consolidation of RCO in Mexico and Elizabeth River Crossing in Virginia, recently acquired. The inclusion of these new assets strengthen Abertis' growth platform in North America, facilitate the analysis of future opportunities. Abertis continues to explore new investment opportunities in the brownfield projects to diversify its continued portfolio and sources of revenue. Abertis net profit per PPA amounted to EUR 84 million for the first three months, a reduction of 29%, driving Abertis' profit contribution to ACS net profit to a negative EUR 6 million. Last April, Abertis proceeded with the dividend payment of EUR 300 million. Backlog evolution. Let's move to the backlog evolution. As of March 2020, working capital remained robust at EUR 63 million, 3.1% higher than the previous year. By core countries, which sum up over 80% of the backlog, the U.S. backlog grew by 7.4%, effects adjusted, up to EUR 28 billion. Australia's one ensued at third, €18.3 billion, 4.8% like-for-like. Spain reached nearly EUR 5 billion with a slight decrease of 1%. This positive evolution is backed by a strong order intake during the first quarter of the year, over €7.7 billion, equivalent to a book-to-bill ratio of 107. Furthermore, we have a positive outlook based on a stimulus plan and Green Deal agreements as part of a crisis response from government. Some of them have been already announced. The current project pipeline, including infra PPPs, provide us confidence for the future. Major recent awards include a high voltage transmission network in Queensland for over EUR 1 billion, a 10-year operation and maintenance contract for infrastructure in the country's regional network awarded to UGL in New South Wales for EUR 958 million, and various roadworks in the U.S. amounting to over EUR 500 million. As March ended 2021, the ACS Group reported a net debt balance of EUR 3.7 billion. This figure is EUR 1.9 billion higher than the net debt reported at year-end 2020. As a consequence of the seasonality effect of the period, which implied assuming cash outflow from the operating working capital variation of approximately EUR 1 billion in line with previous years, driving the net debt from operations to negative EUR 769. The reduction in factoring balance in the last three months to EUR 169 million, the reclassification of industrial businesses, cash of EUR 662 million as discontinued operation after the agreement with Vinci at the end of March 2021. Just to finish, I'd like to highlight that the group first quarter results have confirmed the resilience of our businesses, backed by a strategic decision to focus in the more developed markets. Obviously, after the blackout period caused by the special situation brought by the pandemic, the order intake has significantly recovered in these core markets, providing more visibility in our outlook for the coming quarters. As our chairman mentioned in our recent AGM, the recovery must clearly reflect at Abertis. After a year of frantic global mobility restrictions, 2021, we are seeing an uptick in traffic on highways, 123 is confirming sustained increase in their profitability going forward. This evolution, together with the good performance shown by the rest of business, make us confident on the 2021 results. Looking to the future, we believe that our capacity to create value must target those sectors and activities where our extensive experience and resources can be most efficient and also can help to achieve our sustainability goals. In short, we are focusing our activities in the areas of construction and concession, where we perceive good opportunities to achieve the profitable growth targets we have. Thank you very much. We are now ready to take any questions you might have. Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. If you wish to ask a question, please dial zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. The first question comes from Luis Prieto from Kepler. Please go ahead. Good evening, Luis Prieto here. I had a couple of questions, if I may. The first one is, in the AGM, I understand that the chairman commented on a plan B if Atlantia shareholders or the Italian government decided against the ACS's move on ASPI. It's difficult, and it's probably too early, but if you could shed a bit of light on what these plan B, C, or whatever could entail, that would be extremely useful. At least give us a hint in what direction you're looking at. The second question is regarding industrial services. What's left consolidated there at the EBITDA level? I understand it's just the energy assets that you have kept, and you reported an EBITDA of EUR 11. Is it fair to assume that you're going to end the year with an EBITDA from these assets are in the ballpark of sort of EUR 40 million-EUR 50 million, or am I missing something? Or is there any distortion embedded in this number? Thank you. Yes. To answer the first question, I guess, we manifested that we are interested in looking to the possibility to invest in Aspi with the idea of consolidating a new platform between Aspi and Abertis, which will become within one of the leader concession operators in Europe, if not in the world. It will have a very diversified geographical footprint and ambitions to make it grow. This is something that, obviously, we need to be at any time you work for a concession, you need to be in agreement with the concession grantor, in this case, with the Italian government. We manifested our interest. We are looking into the data room, and we have to wait to see what movement are the concession grantors making. We are ready to lead, but obviously, they've got already an offer presented, which is being discussed. Depending upon how it is perceived, our offer will proceed more aggressively or less. It is obvious that we would never act in a situation where we would not be in a friendly atmosphere to the Italian investor or to the government. We have to see what is their idea, how do they want to privatize the company. For us, it's an interesting asset, but if for whatever reason, they prefer to keep the present situation, we have quite a few other alternatives. The plan B that you mentioned is not a plan B. It's quite a lot of concessions being developed, both in America, in Australia, and in Europe, and also new greenfield operations, and also existing brownfield operations that are being operating in the market. We want, as we said, to focus on the concession operation as well as having the construction arm to be able to convert greenfield into existing operation and make the platform grow, which is, I think, the advantage that a company such as ours would bring to a concession operator. Have the capacity to keep the growth by incorporating new concessions coming from the greenfield state. It's not a plan B. This is something which is going to happen almost regardless. If we were able to invest in assets in attractive conditions, obviously, we would spend more of our gunpowder into that transaction. Otherwise, we'll spend the investment capacity in other concessions. The second question? Yeah, it's about the energy assets that are contributing to the EBITDA. No, the energy asset, I wouldn't be able to tell you whether this 11 is going to be 44. Some of these assets are being marketed. From the very beginning, some were being pursued by some individual investors, specific concession in a small market, which we might sell. I would not be able to tell you whether we'll keep the full amount that we have now at the end of the year. Some, we might be able to sell. Also there are some that are under construction that could start at the second part of the year. Now it's not very easy to forecast what is going to be the EBITDA for full year. Okay. Thanks a lot. Ángel, if I may, a follow-up question regarding the alternatives, potential investments. Would you invest in those directly, the proceeds from the Vinci transaction, or through Abertis in a combined way? Is there any light you can shed in terms of what structures we could think about? Obviously, Abertis is a very good platform. Abertis is a platform where we have another partner, Atlantia, so we wouldn't have any problem in investing through Abertis if the other partner is willing to follow a growth strategy. That doesn't limit us. If the other partner were not to be willing to invest or were not to agree on more investment, we would do it directly through Iridium ourselves. Great. We have the capacity to invest alongside or solo. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any comments or questions, please press zero one on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. Thank you. The next question comes from Fernando Lafuente from Alantra Equities. Please go ahead. Hello, good afternoon. Two questions for, well, three for me, please. The first one is on the outlook of net profit following the comments made by the chairman in the AGM. If you could give us, Ángel, a little bit of, well, actually, what are your views regarding the evolution of net profit for this year? Also, assuming that, well, adjusting the net debt with the changes in the perimeter and also, before the proceeds from Cobra, where are your best expectations for this year for net debt? The second question, it's on investments. I've seen that you have reduced significantly the investments in renewables. I understand that this is it, no? In the sense that you are not investing in renewables, going forward, and you will be waiting for the new GV to acquire these assets, no? Looking to the next quarters, the following quarters. Lastly, on Atlantia, I was wondering if you could give us kind of a view on the timings. I understand that Atlantia will hold its AGM by the end of the month. What are your alternatives here? If you decide at the end to make an offer, can you do it before this AGM, or you have to wait after the AGM? What are the timings there or your views there? Thank you so much. Okay. The first one is a very easy one. What is my outlook of profit? I think about 10 days ago, the chairman in the AGM that if the concession environment was to be positive, then we could get close to 30%. I'm not going to change his slide. Basically, I think we are all considering that if Abertis goes in the line that everybody expects, we could get to this amount. Obviously, it is something which is completely beyond our control because, as you saw about a month ago, the French market suddenly put again restrictions on mobility, hopefully that was something very temporary and is now easing away. It depends very much on Abertis. The other businesses are pretty much resilient. I think there was a slowdown in order intakes in the latter part of the year, which has been in this first quarter being significantly recuperated. We are very positive in the regular business, and we are completely on the pandemic effects for the total businesses. In the case of net debt, it is very difficult to say what is going to be our net debt scenario because, first of all, we hope to get the $5 billion we expect from the sale of Vinci, which hopefully will be the year. Obviously, the amount which is going to remain depends on the investment, how fast and how big the investment will be. I guess whatever I tell you is guesswork. We have the present situation, which is affected by the effects of the first quarter, which obviously we have a negative first quarter in terms of working capital, when we would basically begin to ease off throughout the year. The rest depends on the investment, how fast do they go and how big. In terms of renewables, you said that we are slowing down renewables. I guess we are not investing in renewables in the sense that the renewables development is something that does Cobra, which basically is a discontinued operation. Cobra is continuing with its own activities of development as fast as it was before. The only thing is, obviously, it is something which we are doing on behalf of the potential owner. We do not consolidate at Abertis level, only consolidated net income. They continue with the same progress. The investment that we hope to do if the transaction completes that we expect, the Vinci transaction, we have a company which is presumably 51/49%, through which we will invest. Obviously, to this new company, assets being developed by the company, these 25 gigawatts, which was pipelined, pursued by Cobra and even some of the assets that we might have. Basically, initially, our investment would go the normal way, is to do through the joint company with Vinci. New developments are being done by Cobra itself, without any reduction in the present. Atlantia Atlantia. I guess, little else I can tell you. Basically, what we've said is that we're interested in the asset. We think the asset fits very well with our target of being invested in concession. Second, we think it is a good combination, Abertis and Aspi, for the Italian shareholders. It provides the joint company with a much bigger geographical footprint. It diversifies different markets. The problem with Aspi is that it is restricted to the Italian environment, which is obviously in a situation where you've got a different type of risk to have concentrated in a single market. It's more risky than to have a presence in North America, South America, and other countries in Europe, U.K., and Germany and Spain and even Australia. If you add that to the equation, you get a stronger company. Obviously, it depends very much on what is the attitude of the present grantor, the Italian government. I guess we're never going to get into a situation where we will dispute bitterly the existing bidders, because obviously, you get there, the CDP, which is a state-owned savings bank, which obviously would not make sense to actually fight the bid with them. It might be different possible combinations, and we are basically waiting to see what responses do we get and also while we're doing the analysis in the data room. It's little else I can tell you for the time being. Obviously, by the end of the month, we will have a much clearer picture where do we go. Thank you so much. Thanks. 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. The first one is regarding the renewables joint venture with Vinci. I know it's early days, if you can give us some color about what kind of framework of investment are you wanting to develop with them, if you are setting some kind of profitability criteria in terms of total investment in the project? If you can give us some color about this. This joint venture. The second question is about Abertis. The plan B, if SP doesn't go ahead. Which are the key markets for investment opportunities for Abertis? Is it more the U.S. market or is it more Latin America? If you can give some color about the key markets for the company. Finally, about the capital gains from the transaction of Industrial Services. What are you thinking about these capital gains? To just report them or to use part of these capital gains for cleaning the balance sheet or whatever. Your thoughts about that, because I imagine the +30% guidance of the Chairman in the shareholders meeting doesn't include this kind of capital gains. Thank you. Of course, Ronald. Let me start by answering you the last one. We plan to report the capital gains that we incorporate. We do not plan to hide it under the carpet. Basically, whatever the capital gains will be, will be out of the regular budget, so to speak. I think the chairman implied what is the objective of a regular businesses. The size of these capital gains would be in the medium category. Obviously, it's not incorporated here. Whatever we make as a capital gain, we have to report it and invest most of it, if not all, into new businesses along the lines of what we would like. We've said transportation concession, mostly the Brazilian concession businesses, not everywhere but in developed markets. We consider that this type of investment, we feel more comfortable making them in markets where you've got a strong currency, that you do not have tremendous fluctuations, where you've got a stable legal framework, where investors are willing to buy without a specific cycle concern. North America, Europe, and Australia in principle are the preferred markets. That does not imply that we could not invest in an asset that Abertis bought RCO in Mexico. If it appeared to be a good opportunity, it was done. The focus is not to concentrate in those markets, but rather in the developed markets. In terms of the renewables joint venture, I guess the framework is very simple. Our company, Cobra, is developing quite a lot of renewable assets that we're shooting at a pipeline of 25 giga. Once these assets are really built, you can build them for clients, but these are the ones which Cobra is developing. The idea was to have the ability to invest in a joint vehicle with Vinci. Vinci wants to consolidate them, that's why they would have 51% and we would have 49%. The idea is to do a co-investment with them. I guess, when you say what IRR target we get, that very much does not depend on ourselves, it depends on the market. Obviously, you're not going to set IRR targets for a vision which will be developed two or three years later on. Obviously, they have to be targets which are attractive for the market. The volatility of these projects are really low, depending on the technology and the capacity to generate sustainable cash flows, this is the reason why we think it is worthwhile to invest. We share that view with Vinci, and the idea is as we develop them, keep on putting them. We have the right to invest, not the obligation, on a project-to-project basis. The idea is that we would go and put our chips together in an investment which would provide significant dividends going forward. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you again, if you wish to ask a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any comments or questions, please press 01 on your telephone keypad. Thank you. The next question comes from João Safara from Banco Santander. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi, good afternoon. Just a very simple question, sorry if I didn't understand. If I look at your cash flow statement, it's mentioned that this includes the Industrial Services unit. All of it, so working capital, et cetera, this all includes still the Industrial Services business. You do the adjustment in terms of the cash position of this Industrial Services business in the debt. I was just wondering if I'm looking at it correctly or not. No, in the debt position, when we speak about the debt, obviously, we have all the assets which were incorporated in Industrial Services. When you put them as an asset held for sale, as a discontinued operation, you put them in a line. You eliminate these assets from the cash or the debt situation. You eliminate both the cash and the debt. Since the Industrial still worth, eventually, it was a cash-rich company, had about EUR 700 or EUR 600 plus million. You eliminate that from the cash, while we were keeping the green bond as a liability, because this is not in the assets that we're selling. This is the holding company which we keep. This is basically the reason why it appears as a reduction in the cash. It is a reduction in the cash and it's been reported. Yeah, Jorge, you're right that the cash flow statement includes the cash flow from continued operations and discontinued operations. Both are included in the cash flow statement. Okay? One is the cash flow. Yeah, cash flow. the other is the cash- Yeah. Yeah. No, I was just trying to understand. My understanding is then that the cash flow that is generated includes the industrial services business? Yeah. Then you do the adjustment. The bottom. quarter- Yeah cash at the industrial services. As you know, and all the businesses in the first quarter have this seasonality effect. The operating cash flow always is a little negative. No. Okay? Yeah, I understand. No, I just had the doubt because of a previous question. It was mentioned that in terms of the investments that were being done, and if this, in the end, being industrial services business here, it's true that the investments done in the quarter were very low. Sorry, I got a bit lost when you answered that because I understood that it wasn't included, but okay. Yeah. Also, if you have in the results report, you have the breakdown of the investments, and you can see that there's investments in renewables and divestments as well in renewables. That's why the end is close to zero, but it's. you have- 80 minus 80. Exactly. We have had some disposals agreed last year, and we have some investments, as always, we carry out from Cobra. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. There are no further questions. Dear speakers, back to you for the conclusion. Well, if you don't have any more questions, thank you very much for attending the presentation. You know we are available if after going a bit more in detail to the results, you want to get further clarification. I apologize for having had so little time from the results presentation until this meeting, but we wanted to get this today because tomorrow is a semi-holiday in Madrid, and we wanted to get the information as soon as possible. Thank you very much, and await any further call if you want to make us. Thank you.