Afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the 2026 first quarter results call of ACS Group. This is Javier Crespo, Head of Investor Relations. Today's call will be led by our CEO, Juan Santamaría, who is joined by our Corporate General Manager, Ángel García Altozano, our Chief Financial Officer, Emilio Grande, and the rest of the management team. As usual, following the presentation by our CEO, we will open the line for a Q&A session and look forward to taking your questions. Now, let me hand it over to Juan.
Thank you, Javier. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for being with us today. During the first quarter of 2026, the Group continued to deliver strong operational and financial results, with solid growth in sales, backlog, and net profit, backed by an outstanding level of cash flow performance. The quarter also marked further progress in our growth strategy, reinforcing ACS position as a global engineering-led provider of end-to-end infrastructure solutions. We're leading positions across rapidly expanding growth verticals, including AI, digital and tech, energy, critical minerals and defense. The key results highlights are as follows: Operational net profit reached EUR 239 million, up 25%, in line with the top end of the guidance range set for 2026. While net profit nominal stood at EUR 232 million, up 30% FX adjusted.
Sales and EBITDA also show solid growth, up 4.5% and approximately 16% FX adjusted respectively, and supported by Turner's continuous strong performance and the positive evolution of our strategic growth markets. Cash generation remains standing, with the last 12 months net operating cash flow of EUR 2.3 billion, driving a EUR 1.4 billion improvement in net debt year-on-year. New orders reached EUR 17.5 billion, representing a 1.3x last 12 months book-to-bill at 20% increase FX adjusted, while backlog approached EUR 100 billion, up 13.5% and providing around two years of visibility. Data centers remain a key driver, with backlog reaching EUR 19.4 billion, more than doubling year-on-year.
On the shareholder remuneration front, I will also highlight a 20% increase in our 2025 dividend per share to EUR 2.4 as approved at the recent AGM. Looking ahead, ACS maintains a strong momentum with a record backlog and broad exposure to markets where demand for advanced infrastructure continues to accelerate. This diversified profile, combined with our strict risk management and disciplined capital allocation strategy, reinforces the resilience of the Group and provides us with a strong platform for long-term value creation. We reiterate our operational net profit guidance for 2026 of around EUR 1.03 billion to EUR 1.07 billion, representing growth of 20%-25%. Let's take a closer look at the Group's consolidated performance for the period.
Sales rose by 12.5% FX-adjusted to EUR 12.3 billion, driven by strong performance in North America and continued growth in strategic markets, particularly digital infrastructure, which reached EUR 3.2 billion. EBITDA increased by close to 16% FX-adjusted to EUR 772 million, with margin expansion across all segments and at overall Group levels. Profit before tax amounted to EUR 410 million, up approximately 24% FX-adjusted. We delivered strong operational net profit growth of 25% year-on-year, reaching EUR 239 million, in line with the top end of our full year guidance.
Our backlog of almost EUR 100 billion increased by 16% on a comparable basis after adjusting for FX and the sale of 50% of UGL Transport on the back of an increasing last 12 months book-to-bill of 1.3 x. Overall, this is a very strong start to the year, with growth across the main operating matrix and a continued improvement in profitability. Moving now to the contribution by business line, the strong performance in the quarter was driven by Turner and Engineering Construction, both of which continued to show significant operational momentum. Turner delivered an outstanding performance, with attributable operational net profit increasing by 60% FX adjusted to EUR 143 million. This was driven by the accelerated momentum in digital infrastructure and the continued uplift in margins.
Engineering Construction also recorded a strong contribution, with attributable operational net profit increasing by 38% FX-adjusted to EUR 67 million, reflecting a higher contribution from Flatiron Dragados and a solid performance of HOCHTIEF Europe. CIMIC contributed EUR 46 million, remaining broadly stable on a comparable basis. Slide five highlights the Group's outstanding and sustained level of cash conversion. Net operating cash flow was EUR 2.3 billion on a last 12 months basis. Pre-factoring, it amounted to EUR 2.1 billion, representing an increase of EUR 471 million year-on-year. This performance was supported by robust EBITDA generation, with last 12 months EBITDA increasing by 16.7% and by strong working capital performance. In the quarter itself, working capital showed characteristic seasonal outflow, but with a significant year-on-year improvement.
Overall, the cash flow performance continues to demonstrate the quality of our profit growth and the strength of the Group's operating models. Moving now to the financial position. The Group ended March 2026 with a net debt position of EUR 1.5 billion, representing a strong improvement of EUR 1.4 billion year-on-year. This was mainly driven by the outstanding net operating cash flow generated over the last 12 months, which, together with financial investments, supported continued investments in data centers and other strategic opportunities. Financial investments in the last 12 months include EUR 508 million in data center projects, EUR 200 million related to Abertis' capital contribution in the context of the A-63 acquisition, EUR 371 million in other infrastructure investments, and EUR 204 million in M&A and others.
On the other side, financial divestments include EUR 428 million for the creation of the joint data center platform with GIP, EUR 228 million from the sale of 50% of UGL Transport to Sojitz, and EUR 300 million from the final settlement of the ACS Industrial transaction with VINCI. In the first quarter of 2026, we invested EUR 232 million, including EUR 152 million in data centers, while investment collections generated EUR 536 million, resulting in a net cash inflow of EUR 304 million. In addition, EUR 441 million were allocated to shareholder remuneration over the last 12 months. Moving on to slide seven. Our order backlog stands at an all-time high of almost EUR 100 billion as of March 2026.
This growth was underpinned by a very strong order intake of EUR 17.5 billion, up 20.3% FX adjusted, resulting in an improved book-to-bill ratio of 1.3 x on a last 12 months basis. This very positive performance reflects the Group's continued success in securing high quality projects across our strategic growth markets, particularly in AI, digital, and tech, where backlog has more than doubled year-on-year and now accounts for around 21% of the Group's total backlog. Other strategic growth sectors, such as defense biopharma, health and education, energy and critical minerals also remain strong. The backlog is aligned with the Group's strategic priorities, reinforcing the visibility and quality of future growth.
In the following slides, we highlight a selection of recent significant new orders, which illustrate the progress we're making in scaling our capabilities across our key strategic growth verticals, while further reinforcing the quality, diversification, and resilience of our backlog. They also demonstrate our ability to consistently convert strong market demand into high value opportunities, leveraging our engineering expertise, global footprint, and end-to-end delivery model. Let me start with AI, digital, and technology, where we continue to build on our leading position. Growth in the global data center market remains extremely strong, driven by the accelerating demand for cloud services, AI workloads, and high performance computing. The Group has the resource and capabilities as a global end-to-end solutions provider to address this demand by leveraging its scale, long-standing relationships with hyperscalers, global sourcing expertise, and increasing adoption of modularization and off-site manufacturing.
During the period, we were selected by Meta as one of the key contractors for a $10 billion, 1 GW data center campus in Indiana, U.S., a 4,000,000 sq ft state-of-the-art facility supporting AI and digital infrastructure workloads. We also secured a data center contract in Malaysia for a 58 MW facility from a repeat client, further strengthening our presence in Malaysia. In Europe, we were awarded the construction of a 160 MW data center in Netherlands to be developed in four phases. In the U.S., we are also participating alongside partners in a $15 billion, 902 MW data center complex in Wisconsin, part of the broader Stargate program. Furthermore, construction is already underway at our data center in Alcalá, Madrid, developed within our data center platform.
Overall, we continue to expand our presence across the full AI stack, including data centers, semiconductors, and cloud infrastructure, with strong medium-term visibility supported by our order book and growing pipeline. Energy infrastructure is another key strategic growth vector for the Group. Rising investment in energy security and a transition to a low-carbon systems is underpinning sustained demand for advanced technology infrastructure. ACS is strategically positioned across the full energy value chain, from generation and storage to transmission and advanced technologies, supported by strong end-to-end capabilities and global engineering expertise. A key milestone was reached at the beginning of 2026, when we were selected as part of Amentum's global delivery team for the Rolls-Royce SMR program, where we will take a strategic role in construction management for the deployment of small modular reactors in the U.K. and the European Union.
In addition, during the final quarter of 2025, we secured a major EUR 685 million, 15-year framework contract to sell a nuclear site in the U.K. These awards reinforce our positioning across nuclear, storage, transmission, and renewables, building our long-standing nuclear track record and supporting our strategy to expand across the nuclear value chain. Turning now to transport and sustainable infrastructure. The Group has been a global leader in transport infrastructure and sustainable mobility for several decades, and the outlook remains very positive, supported by infrastructure stimulus packages and the need to upgrade critical networks. In Europe, we secured the next phase of the Prague Metro Line B, a EUR 1.2 billion project, as well as the East Link High Speed Rail project in Sweden, a EUR 900 million contract delivered under a collaborative model.
In the U.S., we continue to expand our presence with projects such as the Battery Park Resiliency project in New York, a $1.7 billion climate resilience project. In Australia, we were awarded the Perth Airport new runway project as part of a major joint venture. In biopharma, health and education, we continue to hold leading positions supported by our technical capabilities, strong client relationships and local presence. In the U.K., we were awarded a EUR 200 million PPP project for the University of Southampton. In the U.S., we secured a $500 million Baptist Health Hospital expansion project. In Germany, we were awarded the Max Rubner Institute PPP project in Kiel and continue to deliver a hospital project in Flensburg. Let me turn now to critical minerals in natural resources.
We're capitalizing on accelerating demand driven by energy transition, digital infrastructure and defense, and have built a global position in minerals processing and mining services through Sedgman and Thiess. A key pillar of our strategy is a partnership with Vulcan Energy for the Lionheart Lithium project in Germany, where we have taken a 15% cornerstone equity stake and secured an end-to-end role. In addition, we secured an AUD 700 million agreement for the Eva Copper Project in Australia, as well as contracts in India to support the development of zinc processing infrastructure. Turning now to defense. Infrastructure investment in this sector is expected to increase significantly worldwide, and ACS is well-positioned, leveraging strong engineering capabilities and a proven execution track record.
During the period, we secured a major contract for the German Armed Forces University Campus in Hamburg, a landmark project combining our expertise in defense and social infrastructure. In the U.S., we're selected for a global construction services program for the U.S. Air Force. In addition, we're awarded the modernization of the Čáslav Military Airport in the Czech Republic. Let us now have a look at the performance by segments. Starting with Turner, which continues to show exceptional momentum and remains a key driver of the Group's growth. Sales increased by more than 25% FX-adjusted, reaching EUR 6.5 billion, particularly driven by data centers and supported by solid growth in pharma, semiconductors, aviation and public buildings.
EBITDA increased by 53.5% FX adjusted, with EBITDA margin expanding by 72 basis points to 3.9%, reflecting Turner's end-to-end strategy focused on advanced tech projects and higher value-add services. Operational profit before tax reached EUR 246 million, up 56% FX adjusted, significantly above the top end of the 2026 guidance growth range. Operational attributable net profit increased by more than 60% FX adjusted to EUR 143 million. Turner also continues to show very strong commercial momentum, with new orders up more than 48% FX adjusted to EUR 10.3 billion, driving the order backlog to a new record of EUR 42.3 billion, up close to 34% FX adjusted, with AI, digital and tech now representing around 41% of Turner's total backlog.
Let me now turn to CIMIC, where we continue to see a solid performance and further progress in portfolio rebalancing. Sales amounted to EUR 2.4 billion, with a shift towards strategic growth markets, particularly data centers, offsetting the winding down of large transport infrastructure projects. EBITDA was broadly stable on a comparable basis with increased margins. Operational profit before tax reached EUR 116 million, representing a 4.8% increase on a comparable basis, supported by margin improvements. Attributable operational profit was up 3% on comparable basis, reaching EUR 46 million. Your backlog stood at EUR 23 billion, up 7.9% year-on-year, with new orders close to EUR 3 billion and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.1 x on a last 12 month basis. Turning now to Engineering Construction segment on slide 17.
Sales increased by 9.5% FX adjusted to EUR 2.6 billion, supported by sustainable mobility and defense projects. EBITDA increased by close to 24% FX adjusted, with EBITDA margin improving by 75 basis points to 6.6%, driven by strong contribution from Flatiron Dragados and HOCHTIEF engineering construction. Attributable operational profit showed strong growth of 38% FX adjusted, supported by a robust EUR 3.5 billion order intake, resulting in strong last 12 months book-to-bill ratio of 1.2 x. Backlog increased by 5.3% FX adjusted to EUR 31.3 billion. Continuing now with Infrastructure segment on slide 18. This segment delivered attributable net profit of EUR 37 million in the quarter, up 3.3% year-on-year.
Abertis EBITDA grew above 9%, supported by positive traffic and tariff performance, while its contribution was offset by non-operational factors such as a higher PPA depreciation. ACS Digital & Energy is now reported separately for the first time, including the equity accounting of the data center joint venture. Iridium contributed EUR 8 million to achieve our net profit. On the next slide, we take a more in-depth look at Abertis, which delivered a robust operating performance in the first quarter of 2026. Revenues increased by 6.4% to EUR 1.5 billion, while EBITDA rose by 9.1% to EUR 1.1 billion. The EBITDA margin reached more than 71%, up more than 173 basis points.
Traffic increased by 1.4% overall, with particularly strong growth in Spain, where traffic increased by 6.4%, in U.S. up 4.8%, and in Chile up 2.4%. Abertis also continued to reaffirm its perpetual growth strategy. During the period, it acquired the remaining 48.8% stake in Atlandes, the A-63 toll road in France. More recently, Abertis announced the tariff renegotiation, a 19-year extension of the concession of FARAC in Mexico. This adds to the 21-year extension and tariff adjustment at Fluminense in Brazil, as well as prior organic initiatives such as the extension of Intervias in Brazil, Metropistas in Puerto Rico, Autopista Central in Chile, and Sanef in France. On slide 20, we highlight several considerations for this important extension.
The agreement increased the concession by 19.5 years until 2067 on an asset that generated approximately EUR 550 million of EBITDA in 2025 and is highly correlated to the U.S. economy. It also includes tariff increases fully linked to CPI over the life of the concession and a EUR 1.2 billion CapEx plan over four years to be fully self-funded through local cash flows and debt. The transaction increased Abertis' average portfolio life from 12 to 15 years and also boost the RCO toll road network EBITDA backlog by 78%. On slide 21, we show the usual breakdown of the key figures by country for Abertis' portfolio. To conclude our review of the first quarter 2026 results, let me highlight the key achievements of the Group.
We delivered a solid operating performance with operational profit reaching EUR 239 million, up 25% year-on-year, in line with the top end of the guidance range set for 2026. The Group again demonstrated outstanding cash performance with last 12 months net operating cash flow of EUR 2.3 billion, increasing by EUR 640 million year-on-year. Order backlog reached a new record level of EUR 99.8 billion, up 16.1% FX-adjusted on a comparable basis. It is also worth highlighting the data centers award momentum, with backlog reaching EUR 19.4 billion, up around 118% better FX-adjusted year-on-year, and new orders more than doubled.
On the back of this data center buildout momentum, Turner continues to be a major driver of the Group's performance, with operational PBT growth of 56% FX adjusted and a Q1 EBITDA margin of 3.9%. In Infrastructure, Abertis continues to reinforce its perpetual operator model with a 19.5-year extension of FARAC in Mexico, including tariff increases, representing a very important milestone and driving an increase in Abertis' average portfolio life from 12 to 15 years. We also continue to prioritize shareholder remuneration, as illustrated at our recent AGM, where a 20% increase to our DPS was approved to EUR 2.4 per share. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our ability to continue executing our strategy, building on a very strong start to the year and clear momentum across our key growth platforms.
We reiterate operational profit growth guidance of 20% to 25%, supported by expansion of our end-to-end capabilities and our increasing export to high-growth, higher-value markets. With a record backlog, a 1.3 x book-to-bill, and strong visibility, we're well-positioned to continue delivering strong and sustainable growth. Thank you once again for joining us today. We now look forward to your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. If you wish to ask a question please press star five on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We have the first question coming from Graham Hunt. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, gentlemen, and thank you very much for the questions. I've just got two on cash flow, if that's okay. The first one is, I mean, clearly it's been extremely strong start to the year from a cash generation perspective, but you've been delivering cash, operational cash ahead of expectations for some time now, and probably even your own expectations. I'm just trying to understand, sort of dig into what's driving that. Is it just the working capital that's coming in, more because of the growth that you're seeing? Or is there work you're doing behind the scenes as well, which is helping really deliver that operational cash flow, ahead of where you maybe were expecting it? Then the follow on from that, I guess the question is, what are you going to do with that cash?
If I remember well, you had a slide in your CMD last year where there was a nice balance between operational cash flow generation and your investments in Infrastructure. You're running well ahead, I think, of that operational cash flow element. When we think about where that goes, is there capacity to invest that in more greenfield? O r should we look at the quite significant increase in dividend that you've announced as a, as an indicator of maybe where that excess cash could be directed? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you so much, Graham. Let me start with the cash flow. I mean, yes, we had a very strong cash generation at the beginning of the year. What's driving that is a mix of three things I would say. The first one is growth. We, we've been growing for the last four years very strongly, and we believe that we'll continue growing. We have a very good visibility in terms of how that backlog and new orders are going to perform within the next years. Second, very I mean, the projects, the contracts, the quality of the awards are also very strong.
We are not I mean, this was one of our big ambition, to make sure that we could perform our projects with no surprises. Making sure that we could get into contracts, providing value, so we could get a very good balance risk approach to the project. That allow us to perform without surprises, which is also driving cash flow. Probably there's also some recovery of positions. The most important thing is that what has been driving cash flows up to now most likely will continue driving cash flows in the future. In that sense, we are not seeing any change. When it comes to Firepower, we're talking about the EUR 1.6 billion with working capital zero.
Right now, we are always talking about more or less, I mean, the Firepower EUR 900 million net operating cash flow per year post-payment dividend, because the EUR 1.6 billion will include the payment. You remove the dividends, you get EUR 900 million. I think that we did multiply at that time by five to get to the EUR 4.5 billion. On top of that, we were adding the divestment, potential divestments, right? That's I think the way we did value in our CMD. Obviously, if you do backwards, and I think we went through all of this in our previous investor presentation, you could see the way we've been managing all those, I mean, cash inflows and the investments versus new investments.
Moving forward, we're going to apply the same logic. We believe that we are going to continue getting to the EUR 800 million per year, if not more, so that will continue giving us a lot of cash flow. We believe that we do have still potential non-core assets, but right now, our business plan doesn't even need to divest those to meet our objectives. The potential acquisitions that we're looking at, whether it's data centers, whether it's greenfield infrastructure, Abertis, et cetera, falls within the plan. I mean, we'll continue balancing and having that good balance between operational cash flow injection and investments.
When it comes to the dividend, our value proposition is always to keep a very good balance of shareholder remuneration and share price appreciation, right. Of course, all that supported by resilient cash flow generative business. The dividend was started at EUR 2.4 per share, and that includes both the entry in February and the July complementary. Our policy will continue balancing that attractive shareholder remuneration with the rating, the investment grade rating, and investment plan. We are always putting the three. As I said before, the strong cash generation is going to allow us to continue having all the cash we need for our continued growth, right. We are not, we're not giving up or we are not weakening that position, right.
We are accepting the EUR 2.4 per share because we believe that in spite of that, our strong cash flows are going to allow the full growth potential that we're looking for.
Very clear. Thanks, Juan. Thanks.
Next question, Dario Maglione, please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the presentation, and congratulations for this great set of results. I wanted to focus a bit on Turner, and specifically the data center business within Turner. Can you tell us a bit more about the order intake in Q1 for data centers in Turner? Both in terms of what you booked in Q1, but also in terms of the backlog of projects that have been awarded but are not yet in the backlog. Maybe a question around the Group guidance for 2026. After this very good Q1, especially FX adjusted, the guidance thus looks increasingly conservative, especially for Turner. Any thoughts there? Maybe last question, if I can.
On the joint venture to build data centers, is there any update on signing leases? Thanks. Thanks, Juan.
Thank you, Dario. Let me start talking about Turner, and then more specifically about Q1. If you go to last year, Turner finished with a $16 billion backlog full 2025. Now, the backlog of Turner in data centers at Q1 2026 reaches $19.6 billion, right? That has been, I mean, we're talking about US dollars here. This has been an extremely good growth. More importantly, there's another EUR 15.5 billion not yet in backlog, right? Not yet in the backlog.
That shows that Turner is going to continue growing at a very fast pace. The revenues that last year was EUR 10 billion, for 2025, we're expecting to reach overall probably EUR 18 billion-EUR 19 billion this year. It's even going faster than what we anticipated. We thought that by 2030 we'll be reaching EUR 25 billion. I believe that by the end of this year, we're gonna be around EUR 17 billion-19 billion, right? That's going very fast in data centers. More specific in Q4, the new orders of data centers was around...
EUR 6.8—
EUR 6—
—Q1 new orders.
New order, g ive me just one second. EUR 5.7 billion, which is around 114.9% more. Guidance was the next question. In terms of the guidance, first of all, the numbers are there, right? Turner operational EBITDA grew 56% USD in Q1 versus the 25%-30% guidance. The new orders are more than 48%. Around $23 billion projects were awarded just to Turner. More than $15.5 billion were just in data centers. We see a continued additional benefit coming from SourceBlue, increased modularization from xPL, which is basically improving margins, and will continue margins improving throughout the year.
Yes, that's going in the right direction. The only thing that I would say about Turner, and the reason why we haven't increased guidance yet, is because margin increased throughout 2025 a lot. Q1 was a little bit slow last year, or, well, it was growing versus previous year, but throughout the year grew a lot more. We want to understand, before giving a legal guidance, a little bit more where we can end up at by the end of the year, right? We'll give, as soon as we have that clear, we will give an update on Turner. Let's talk about ACS Group, right? A little bit of the same with ACS Group, right? All the business is performing strongly, within or above the guidance.
Yes, it's been conservative. The only thing that has stopped us from upgrading the guidance this time is the geopolitical uncertainty and the FX evolution, right? Once we understand, as soon as we understand what happens with the current geopolitical uncertainty, especially specifically Iran, and the FX evolution, we will give an update, right? It's not so much about not increasing the guidance. The question is, we need to be sure before giving a legal new guidance.
The last one is about the GIP. That's evolving very, very positively. On one side, 100% of the sites are now connected to the grid. 80% is with a clear path to power. We have all the permitting, but we're finalizing the last connections and infrastructure. We expect the first lease, I mean, before the end of the first half of 2026. That's very important because we do have framework agreements right now with different potential clients. And those I mean, to be able to materialize the first ones, that will unwind additional good news when it comes to commercialization.
We are still on path to commercialize the 250 MW IT that we that we're looking forward to commercialize this year. That's on path. In addition, and on top of the GIP platform, we continue working on additional 1.5 GW of projects out of the GIP platform that we've I mean, we have right now the path to power, and we have the permitting, and we have the connection. That's very positive as well. That's being developed on the platform. The third part, which is the the edge data centers that is progressing well.
That one, we will be able to give an update probably by Q2 on that one, because that We're still, as soon as we are able to finish the first ones and going through all the testing, which is going very, very well, then it will move very fast in terms of the number of data centers that we're gonna be able to build, around, starting around Europe.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you, Juan.
Next question, Amal Patel, please go ahead with your question.
Hi, Juan. Thank you very much for the presentation. Three questions from me, if I may. Maybe on the Turner order intake, excluding data centers, what are you seeing for the remainder of U.S. non-res? Clearly some concerns on the economy and Middle East impact on inflation are having an impact on starts. Which pockets of the market do you think are accelerating and then maybe those which aren't doing as well? Secondly, maybe just on Dragados, the EBITDA margins, we had a 60 basis points expansion year-over-year, yet the operational PBT margins were basically flat. Could you help me understand what's driving this? A nd what EBITDA margins for Dragados to expect for the remainder of the year?
Third question, if I may, just on the capital contributions to Abertis, what can we expect for 2026, and I guess until the end of the decade? Thank you.
Thank you so much, Amal. Let me start with the first one, specifically about the U.S. economy and Turner. I mean, it's true that data centers are growing significantly, right? I mean, just in terms of the backlog, the backlog grew 132.5%. I know that you didn't ask for it, let me start with that. In terms of order intake, it did grow 114.9% versus previous quarter. What about the rest of the area? If we focus from a backlog perspective, we are seeing commercial growing. It did grow 65.3%. That's around I mean, our backlog in commercial is around about 11.6% of the total.
If you remember, Turner that percentage was much, much, much higher a few years ago. That was a big part of Turner, right now it's at 11.6%, which is not much. We see a little bit of a recovery versus a market that, I mean, was close to 50%, it went all the way down to 11.6%, and we're seeing it growing. We're seeing a lot of projects in terms of aviation in general. That's growing 15.8% to EUR 2.7 billion in our backlog, which is around 6.5% of the total. There's a little bit of hotel and sports, which is more or less steady, decreasing a little bit.
Some governmental buildings, steady, increasing a little bit, like same thing as convention and conference centers. As we move into biopharma, healthcare, and education, healthcare and biopharma continues strong, growing around 20% more or less. 17.4% in the case of healthcare, biopharma, 22%. Healthcare is 15.4% of our backlog. That's an important part of the backlog. We're moving to semiconductors. That's an activity that continues taking off. We increased significantly. Still, I mean, it was higher in the past. Right now it's 1.2%. We believe that that's an area that is going to grow significantly through the next years, right? We're very optimistic about that one.
That more or less, from a backlog perspective, is in line in the analysis from an order intake perspective. Dragados. Dragados, you're right. When you look at Dragados from an EBITDA perspective, there was 75 basis points to 6.6% EBITDA expansion versus PBT level, which went up 40 basis points. This was basically. Give me just one second. I just want to make sure that I have the right numbers. Sorry, I was given. I had in front of me the engineering construction. I had to go specifically to Dragados isolated. Let me go through Dragados isolated. The sales went up 10.8%. It was FX adjusted.
EBITDA went up 23.1% FX adjusted year-on-year. With gross margin expansion to 6.2%. What happens with the PBT, right? Which is your question. There were a few things. The first, mainly, through the consolidation of Dragados, there were a few one-off impacts that were basically reversed. I mean, it's not, I mean, they are not structural effects. They are one-offs, and they are not projects or problems coming from projects. They are basically from the consolidation of Dragados. Very, very specific. The last question was about Abertis. First of all, before I go into capital expansions, Abertis continues evolving very, very well, right?
We always focus on the same numbers, I think that it's worth to repeat them, right? The net debt to EBITDA ratio went from 6.6x to around 5.2x. The EBITDA backlog, if you remember the last time we spoke, what I said, and this was the end of last year in February, that the EBITDA backlog versus net debt went from 3.4 x to 5.9 x. That was the last time we spoke. EBITDA backlog versus net debt from 3.4 x to 5.9 x. Post FARAC, we're looking at 10.4 x EBITDA backlog versus net debt.
The amount, this is post FARAC and post all the negotiations in Brazil and post some other organic renegotiations. All this has been achieved without additional equity, right? More specifically about product expansion, the EBITDA backlog of RCO increased by 78%. The average concession, and I said that in the presentation, went from 13 to 15 years, and this is the entire Abertis. If we focus on EBITDA by 2033 post Sanef, we're looking right now between EUR 4.5 billion to EUR 4.7 billion. This is an improvement from the EUR 4 billion figures that we gave the last time we gave an update of Abertis in the CMD. That's in general. Now let's talk about additional equity. There's a few opportunities that we're looking at, okay?
At the end of the day, I mean, Abertis is evolving very, very well with some help in capital improvements, but more importantly, in the organic growth. However, every year we analyze two, three transactions, right? If they make sense, we will inject equity. If they don't make sense, then we will not. Obviously we need to always have a balance between how much we invest in Abertis versus greenfield managed lanes that give us better returns versus data centers that give us better returns. All the M&A and bolt-on acquisitions that we've done in engineering construction have given us very good returns in the last four years, right? Just Dornan was multiplied by three, but this has been more or less the same experience in the rest of the bolt-on acquisitions.
When it comes to Abertis, they have to really contribute in the right way, and increase these features. Do I think that we have opportunities in the next two years that we can tackle and we can inject additional equity? Yes, I think so, it's a little bit too soon to go through them.
Thank you very much.
Next question comes from Marcin Wojtal from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon. I've got three questions. Firstly, if you allow me, I would like to follow up on this dividend of EUR 2.4. Can you just clarify what sort of formula was used to determine the exact level? Also more importantly, going forward, could we anticipate ACS to follow perhaps a payout ratio or some other formula to determine its annual dividend? Is it going to be determined, you know, on an individual basis every year? My second question relates to your exposure to the U.S., obviously Turner and other businesses. I think that is more than 60% of net profit. I was just wondering, do you have any plans to increase engagement with U.S. investors?
Also specifically, would you consider an additional listing of the ACS Group in the U.S. at any point in the future? My question number three, very quickly, could you just remind us if you're planning to organize a Capital Markets Day this year and when could that potentially be? Thank you.
Thank you, Marcin. Okay, on the dividend. I mean, the EUR 2.4 per share is around the 65% payout ratio. And that's the ratio that we have always been comfortable, and that's the level that we believe is reasonable. Obviously we are growing a lot, and we need to balance growth versus dividend yield. It's a balance. But I mean, we look at all the opportunities. We look at, as I said before, to the cash flow coming in, and investments, and we feel comfortable coming back to this 65% payout ratio this year as in the past. Yes, we are dealing with U.S. investors.
Yes, we see that the more we generate in the U.S. and the more we invest in the U.S., the more appetite we get from the U.S. investors, especially as we continue growing in all the high growth areas, not just data centers, but digital in general, critical metals, energy, defense, et cetera. Obviously the listing in the U.S. it's always an option. We haven't reached any decision and we'll continue analyze as we continue expanding our presence in the U.S. that remains and continues growing very strong. On the Capital Markets Day, we are planning to have a Capital Markets Day in November the 12th this year.
We will confirm the day within the next days and we will publish so everyone has the official date reserved.
Next question comes from José Manuel Arroyas from Grupo Santander. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. I have two, if I may. The first one is about the stake in HOCHTIEF. Has ACS increased its stake year to date, or is a plan to increase the stake being considered or might be considered? My second question is on net operating cash flow and growth. I wanted to better understand if the prepayments Turner secures on individual data centers orders are higher or lower than for instance, those the EPCs segment might be securing, you know, upon signing orders. Thank you.
Thank you, José Manuel. Starting with the stake in HOCHTIEF, we haven't acquired any additional shares in HOCHTIEF, There's no update in that sense. Are we looking forward to acquire? As I always say, we will be opportunistic, as if the opportunity comes, we will. If not, we will consider. On the net operating cash flow, Turner doesn't have higher prepayments because of the nature of the contracts. It's also true that on the construction side of things, we've been moving away from the EPCs and lump sum projects that typically those have very big advanced payments, and right now we do not have those. In return, we win a much better risk profile for those projects.
No, in the case of Turner, there's no, there's no I wouldn't say that there's any material prepayment or advance payment on the projects.
Next question again comes from Dario Maglione. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking a follow-up question. This is more like a broader picture question. Some investors in AI and data centers, they worry about specifically the bottlenecks to build up these data centers. What are you seeing maybe talking about the U.S., where you have a big presence, of course. What are you seeing? What are the bottlenecks? How concerned are you about these bottlenecks? Thanks.
Okay, Dario. It's true that there has been, I mean, increases in the lead times of electrical equipment, especially in 2023 and 2024, to the point that certain elements were becoming a real bottleneck. For example, high voltage transformers at the time, I think we could expect 120 to 124 weeks to get those orders. The UPSs and the battery systems were typically during 2023 and 2024, I mean, we could wait between 35 to 45 weeks, and they should gear down, I mean, it was around 55 weeks, right? That's that was probably the worst time during 2023, 2024. Since then, the market in general has been improving, right?
One of the reasons why we always talk about the backlog we have, but then we mention the projects that we've been awarded but are not in the backlog, is because those projects, the EUR 15 billion data centers that we're talking to clients right now that are not in our backlog, is precisely to make sure that we're going through all this planning phase on the design, on the ordering of all electrical equipment, cooling systems, CPUs, GPUs, et cetera, et cetera, to make sure that by the time we start, everything goes very, very smooth, right. That's the reason why we go through all that design and all that planning in advance: labor, permitting, and all the equipment. I would say a couple of things. The first one is the market is improving in that sense.
Our relationship with the clients make, I mean, that this is part of our process, that we're looking at a lot of different data centers, and we focus on the planning in advance. And then obviously, the fact that we have SourceBlue with us, that right now is becoming a big monster when it comes to managing logistics and storing and critical elements and all these mechanical components, right. To the point that even we store with enough time in advance, and we are managing all of this very well. The modularization that we start in compresses schedules and the risk execution. We have increased significantly our self-performance capabilities to avoid reliance in a specific items. And then obviously, we have a huge local presence, right.
I believe that execution, not just the market, but the relationship with the clients, as I explained, and the execution is a big differentiator, right? That's why all these data centers, they grow in size, they grow in complexity. It's more and more important that the company is delivering. It's not just about managing the construction, but it's managing the procurement, managing the MEP, being able to modularize, being able to have industrial execution, manufacturing, specialty or track record. There's a lot of different things that contribute to the success of these projects, and that's why I believe Turner is being so successful versus some of the new entrants that they lack scale to manage all these suppliers, right? To manage the delivery of all these components, right?
Its volume is very, very, very important when you're managing all these global, supply chains. I think that, yeah, I think that covers the question.
Okay. Thank you, Juan.
Thank you, Dario.
Next question comes from Nicolas Mora from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Sorry, just coming back on Turner on the step up in revenues you would expect from mostly from advanced technology. That must be data center. The $17 billion-$19 billion revenue, let's say aspiration for 2026, that's based solely on the data centers orders you've got already. Looking beyond that, what kind of visibility do you have, for example, you know, 12 months out, 18 months out? I mean, you always talk about a bit of asymmetry of information. You know what your clients want. You have these conversations. What do you have beyond 2026 where I think market is already quite optimistic. How can you reassure basically the growth then does not falter into straight into 2027?
The second question would be, you've touched upon everything you're doing on industrializing the process. Just wanted to touch base on what your scale brings, especially on SourceBlue logistics side and on especially on modularization. We think some of your competitors, at least some guys in the supply chain in services, doing more and more, investing a lot. Do you have plans to invest a lot more in, let's say, in warehouses, industrial warehouses, to be able to cater for surge in capacity? Last point on maybe on the semis opportunity. You've been excited about this opportunity for a while. We're now seeing a huge amount of novelty and real pickup. What's in the offing for you?
What opportunities are you seeing which could add basically to data center, let's say from 2027, 2028 onwards? Thank you.
Thank you, Nicolas. I mean, with Turner, we have, or we always think we do have big visibility about what's coming because we are already planning with our clients, data centers right now all the way to 2029 to start 2028 and 2029. A lot of these components on these data centers have to be ordered with a lot of time in advance, especially when it comes to chips or GPUs, CPUs, et cetera. You need to make sure that you jump into a queue with enough time in advance. That's where we have visibility, and that's when we last time in November, we said that we were at EUR 10 billion revenues, and we're going to increase to EUR 25 billion revenues. We had a very clear path.
All of that basically was committed, right? It was not based on any estimate of what could come. It was already in our books, right? The thing is that it's growing too fast and any estimate that we can do, it always falls short. We thought that we were going from EUR 10 billion to EUR 25 billion in a very linear way. All of a sudden, we're going to finish this year, and we're already finding ourselves in the EUR 17 billion-EUR 19 billion revenues, right? Whatever we can estimate, the market always basically defeats our estimates in the positive side, right?
That's the challenge, trying to keep up with this huge data center growth, which is way above what we all thought it was going to be. We were very optimistic at the beginning. In terms of industrializing the process. We were investing in modularization. The first part of what we've been doing is basically using our own. We have a lot of workshops around the globe where we used to build prefab, a lot of precast elements of beams, girders, the ring segments for tunnels, all kind of precast components. We are transitioning them, some of them into data centers, some of them into nuclear, some of them into biopharma, et cetera.
We are investing, but obviously because we do have the workshop and it was operational, the organic investment is not that big, right? It's pretty much included in the CapEx so far. As an example, in the last recent data center project that we finished, we did build 3,500 modules, right? And right now we do have a standard 50 MW modularized data center. And we're being able to build through that, through those modules, I mean, putting together 50 MW modules, we can build 1 GW, 2 GW data centers. And we're going very, very fast. That's growing significantly. On top of that, we are thinking on potentially doing some M&A, additional acquisitions in terms of bolt-on acquisitions, right?
Not only the organic thing that I just mentioned, there's some opportunities. We are working right now with two hyperscalers in two very big data centers that are 100% modularized, right? That's growing very fast. That's growing very fast. Actually, we did put together xPL Offsite last year, which is a pretty much dedicated platform for prefab and modular delivery, right? It's already proving execution in a few data centers in the U.S. xPL, it's inside Turner, but it's driving and leading our global operational and modular strategy, right? There's a big group, a global group where we are pretty much exchanging processes, quality, shop drawings, everything around this modularization so we can replicate globally, not just in the U.S.
We are seeing faster schedules, we're seeing improved productivities and quality. We reduce the site congestions. We have a greater certainty when it comes to schedule, when it comes to cost. We increase production capacity. I think that it's a key differentiator of Turner. When it comes to semiconductors. In semiconductors, we are working on the fabs at this stage, right? Let me go back. We have always this was part of the Capital Markets Day, but it was reinforced in our Investor Day in November. We want to be part of the entire AI chain, right? The only part of the AI chain that we are not willing to become part of it is training of the languages, the models, all that part.
Anything before that goes from semiconductors, semiconductor fabs, to data centers, to fiber, to the energy on these data centers. We jump the language or the training of the AI model itself, we continue on the applications where we are working on a few applications, and robotics, where we are pretty much already looking into the future when it comes to robotics associated to infrastructure. We want to participate in everything, and that's when it comes to semiconductor fabs. We have experience in the U.S. We were recently awarded, well, not yet in our backlog, but a semiconductor fab in India. We're working on a couple of them in the U.S.
We believe that I mean, the fabs will continue being a business. We are looking at additional opportunities around that semiconductor fab space.
If I may just a couple of follow-up just on one thing we heard from a few investors is maybe your over-reliance on Meta, especially in the first quarter on that large project in Indiana. Can you maybe say something on this, on how you see yourself, your diversified pool of clients? Number two, on inflation in the system, in the data center chain, how do you maneuver that? What are you seeing on the ground? Are we talking about, you know, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% inflation year-over-year? Just to gauge a little bit, Well, basically the boost you could get also on your revenues from that. Thank you.
Okay. I think that, right now, when you look at specifically the U.S., I think that this changes a lot, okay? Because sometimes right now there's peaks with one hyperscalers versus another one. I do think that right now we have a peak with Meta that reaches 37% of our revenue breakdown in 2025, right? 37% of our revenues in the U.S., just in the U.S., in 2025 were with Meta. Prior to that, Microsoft was on the top, and we've seen years with Google on the top, right? We have other hyperscalers. Last year, we had peak 20%, 15%, 4%, 10% from the other hyperscalers. That was specifically 25, and it changes a lot, right? It changes a lot.
We do have around 23% of DC developers, platforms in general, and around 9% of other colo enterprises, right? Corporations, et cetera. Not a specific developers, not a specific hyperscalers. It very much diversified, and it changes a lot. Out of the U.S., it's super diversified, right? When you look at all, you look at all data centers in Asia, that's hyperscaler developers and there's a mix. And in Europe, we're seeing a mix as well. I mean, I wouldn't say I mean, yes, we last year, we had a lot of work from Meta. It's a huge and very good client for us, this changes all the time.
Okay. There are no further questions. I hand it over to the management of ACS. Please go ahead.
Okay. Thank you so much everyone for your time today. As always, if you have any further question, please feel free to ask directly. Thank you so much.