Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to Ferrovial's conference call to discuss the financial results for the first 9 months of 2021. Just as a reminder, both the results report and presentation are available to you on our website. As in previous results, and although some restrictions to mobility have been lifted during the first 9 months of the year, we would like to highlight the financial information included in our report has been impacted by COVID-19 outbreak, mainly since the second half of March 2020. Given the uncertainty regarding the speed and the extent of the full resumption in activity, it is not possible to predict how the health crisis will affect Ferrovial's group information and performance for the rest of 2021. Ferrovial will continue to closely monitor trading conditions and further evidence of wider economic impacts.
I am joined here today by Ernesto López Mozo, our CFO, and the CFOs of our business units. If you have any questions, you may ask them through the forum included in the webcast. During the Q&A session at the end of this presentation, we will be reading out your questions and who they are from. With this, I will hand over to Mr. López Mozo. Ernesto, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Begoña, and hi, everybody. Okay, this presentation we have more stuff than usual. Not only will we cover the results for the first nine months of the year, but also discuss the different divestments and capital allocation that is taking place in the group. We have on the first slide the overview of the first nine months. In the managed lanes in Texas, we've seen strong traffic performance, even though during the summer there was a surge in cases that affected dampening a little bit the performance. In any case, the strong revenue per transaction growth has brought higher revenues on the back of higher toll rates and a higher proportion of heavy vehicles. Also, the I-77 keeps improving in Q3. Traffic is above pre-COVID-19, and revenues are accelerating even faster.
On the I-66, we were able to exercise the right of first refusal, increasing our participation by 5.704%. This additional stake makes us reach 55.704%. In the 407 ETR, we saw a solid traffic recovery with mobility restrictions and changes since mid-July. Well, more than solid, it's steady. I mean, traffic is recovering, but clearly the region is still being cautious about the pandemic. Health is a priority, and in general, employers are asking employees not to go back to the office. Very important news from the 407 ETR, there was a resumption of dividends. A dividend has been approved for this fourth quarter of the year. Regarding airports, clearly the summer saw more restrictions that we were expecting.
In particular in the U.K., there were a lot of travel system updates. In general, restrictions put back travelers, and they have been postponing their plans. With restrictions being lifted now and basically more freedom to move for people that have been vaccinated from most countries, there has been a surge in demand, and traffic performance in the fall is recovering nicely and really pointing to the kind of forecast that Heathrow had before the summer. The CAA's initial proposals for the next regulatory period, H7, are disappointing. They provided wide ranges in terms of pricing and cash flow generation. There's a big disparity or gap with Heathrow's estimates. We'll discuss that later.
In AGS, well, there's not really news in terms of finances. They happened before. I won't dwell into that. Performance, the same as in Heathrow, was affected in December, but is recovering now nicely. Regarding contracting, construction delivered strong numbers, 2.4% EBIT-to-sales margin with Budimex still outperforming. Also, the program of sale of non-core assets by construction was finalized. A number of them, successful transactions, all of them have been flowing through our books, and they are complete right now. Services is showing a very strong performance across the board that is helping closing the divestments that were in place.
In July, we reached an agreement to sell the environmental business in Spain and Portugal, and we just got the approval from the European Commission in terms of competition. By the end of November, we should be closing that important transaction. Today, we also announced an agreement for the sale of the infrastructure services in Spain. We'll discuss that later. In terms of capital allocation, Ignacio already commented. We also submitted an offer to acquire participation through a capital increase, a participation of 24.9% in IRB, an Indian-listed company, a very successful infrastructure developer there.
More on that later. Also in terms of investment, the board approves an additional up to EUR 200 million of treasury stock share buybacks, shares that after being bought they will be canceled or amortized. We really closed the quarter with a strong financial situation, net cash ex-infrastructure of EUR 1.8 billion. Remember that big divestments are coming up soon, so the end of the year should have a very strong position. Okay. We move to discuss the operating performance. We see the growth in revenues and EBITDA from toll roads. We also have the lines for equity accounted. All of them grew nicely vis-a-vis last year.
We'll compare in the coming graphs more the performance against pre-pandemic, but clearly the U.S. is showing all the growth that could be coming from those assets. As I said, we will discuss this in turn individually. I would like to put some attention into roads that are being developed and will come in the not too distant future. In terms of managed lanes, we have the 35 West that should come up before the end of 2023, the 66 at the end of 2022. They are coming up fast. We are investing in there, as we show in the slide.
The other four that we put in there are availabilities and they are also being completed, many of them. Therefore, we should be adding all this infrastructure to our portfolio. In terms of sales, the only one remaining is a very small part, close to EUR 25 million of the Portuguese toll roads. This should be closed either before the end of this year or probably in the first quarter. There's only that left in terms of sales in these assets. Okay. Moving to the specific performance of traffic in the managed lanes. The graphs show the trend continuing. We have the latest data that are in some squares here in green.
For NTE 35W, we can see that they are above the COVID levels, 2019. Not yet in LBJ, but still good performance. I mean, we see that in the summer, there was some dips, I mean, or slightly less growth from the surge in the COVID. We have other events that happened along the year, like heavy rains in May or the winter storm impact in February. Okay. If we move to the next slide, we can see the revenue performance vis-à-vis the traffic performance. Well, okay.
We can see that the growth in the 35 West and NTE of revenues clearly outpaces the growth in traffic, more so in the 35 West, and also in the I-77. The I-77 now has heavy traffic, and that mix is helping, even though the proportion of heavy vehicles in these roads is much smaller than in the other managed lanes. LBJ is still not there. LBJ is still, I mean, serving a white collar community, still with an important percentage of work from home. If we move to the specific financial numbers of these managed lanes, I would like to highlight the growth in average revenue per transaction.
As I said, this is a mix of growth in tariffs mixed with more heavy vehicles. We need to remember that in the NT we have mandatory mode events, and that there is even a higher number of mandatory mode events in NT now in September than they were pre-pandemic in February 2020. Whenever there is this kind of situation, we have to price above the soft cap with an algorithm. That helps also to increase the revenue per transaction, obviously. In terms of updating the regions, the regions news, I would like to highlight some indicators that we are following now more to be consistent among the different places.
We are following mobility at workplaces across the different places where we operate. In Dallas County, mobility to workplaces is 18% below 2019. This is coming from Google Mobility. Still well below pre-pandemic, and this is something that in other regions is even higher, so still some way to go to have more people back in the office. In terms of schools, they are mostly in person. Vaccination reached between 60%-70% of population fully vaccinated. It's important to underscore the level of activity in terms of new companies settling there, also growth in the population.
There's a variety of businesses that is moving here and not only for logistics or for manufacturing, also headquarters are being placed here, like the case of Aecon. We move to discuss the I-77 on the next slide. Here, again, we see a very important growth as we saw in previous graphs. As I mentioned before, we have now trucks going through our roads. This is helping in terms of performance. Also, the area is growing in employment, population, but still is behind other regions in terms of mobility at workplaces. If we look at the same KPI that we were following in Dallas-Fort Worth, here we have 34% below 2019. Remember, it was like 18% in Dallas-Fort Worth. Okay?
North Carolina is still behind Dallas- Forth Worth. Okay. Moving on to the I-66, more than showing traffic performance. Remember, it's not opened, but the corridor is showing similar patterns. It's still a drop vis-a-vis 2019, but clearly with more traffic per lane than other areas. In particular, it has more traffic per lane than LBJ in 2019. It's very important to see some of the features of this road that are somehow different to the ones in Texas. We are adding capacity, but not that much. I mean, the current configuration is three general purpose lanes, plus one HOV, higher occupancy vehicles lane.
We are changing to a configuration of the same number of general purpose lanes, three, and we will have two managed lanes in each direction. Pricing is flexible. There's no soft cap here, and there's freedom to set heavy multipliers. Also, this road is longer. I mean, it's 22 miles vis-a-vis, for instance, something like 13 miles in NTE, with a concession term that finishes in 2066 and with a total project investment of $3.6, right? We're still investing in this asset.
The acquisition of this stake means that we acquire control, and there's an accounting rule that forces us to mark-to-market when the transaction closes the whole stake at fair market value, right? You will see a huge capital gain. It's not an accounting rule that we like. It's the way it is. We cannot avoid it. We will be having a very important capital gain, I mean, north probably of EUR 1 billion before deferred tax liabilities. It will be globally integrated when the transaction is approved. The area has high congestion levels already, as I mentioned before. I mean, it's better than LBJ in 2019.
Household income is higher, $100,000 versus $70,000 in Texas. The people are used to paying tolls. Sometimes they are quite high. Okay. I mean, these are some of the main features I wanted to share with you of the I-66 to put some color on the acquisition of the controlling stake earlier in this quarter. Okay, moving to the 407, we see the traffic performance. As I said at the beginning, it's trending upwards. Still not really full reopening from, let's say, the public mind, and that is probably the most important thing.
Also, there is still some restrictions in terms of indoor activity. It keeps reopening. We will have to see when employers ask their employees for more normality. It's early days. It's difficult to tell. I mean, the latest number we have is a drop of 31.5% in terms of traffic vis-à-vis 2019. Improving but still slowly, as I said, a lot of caution that can be seen in the next slide when we check parameters similar to the ones we were discussing for Dallas-Fort Worth or for North Carolina. You see that the mobility to and from workplaces is kind of 44% down vis-à-vis the pre-pandemic.
Remember, this compares with thirty plus in North Carolina and 18% in Dallas-Fort Worth. Also, when you look into days of school fully closed, you see that Canada really tops any international chart. I mean, they've been pretty much closed the full year and the year before. In terms of percentage of employees in the office, you see that Canada lags U.S. and Europe clearly. Okay, we'll have to assess more the performance of the asset going forward when we see more of a reopening, and people feel the pandemic is left behind. If we move to the next slide, we can see the financial performance, and here, I would like to highlight the announcement of a dividend.
The board just approved that. CAD 300 billion is the dividend approved, and still the company has a very solid financial position, a lot of liquidity. At the end of September 2021, it had CAD 1,790 million of cash and equivalents, and it had CAD 800 million in terms of credit facilities. The 407 is clearly in a very comfortable situation in terms of liquidity and to satisfy any financial obligations. There's no meaningful bond maturities until September next year. That is around CAD 300 billion. The maturity profile is quite friendly, I would say.
Okay, very good to see the asset resuming dividends and looking forward to the performance at the end of the year and next year with more reopening. Okay, we move to the next slide. We see Heathrow's performance. I mean, it's just so recent that Heathrow's management was discussing the performance. Of course, traffic has seen quite a drop compared to 2020. Even though 2020 was affected by the pandemic, it had a very good first quarter before the pandemic, so traffic is still at an important drop. But in general, the revenues are holding, and there's a lot of effort from a cost containment, CapEx containment point of view.
It's holding, and more importantly, traffic seems to be recovering more with this relaxation of travel restrictions, and people are just waiting to travel. If we move to the next slide to discuss the regulation and different outlooks for the asset. Well, we see that the traffic estimates by Heathrow are pretty much in line with what they thought before the summer, and this is because of the recovery we are seeing now, because the summer was a little bit disappointing with all these restrictions and changes in the traffic light system for travel. We have seen the initial proposals from the CAA. I mean, I have to be blunt, and we are quite disappointed with these initial proposals.
Among other things, there is no RAB restatement further from the 300 interim that was allowed. I mean, this is very important. I mean, there's huge investment going into these assets, and you can take the benefit of seeing these pictures at the bottom of the page. I mean, all these investments to change the old terminal to the new one are huge and are predicated on an expectation on the CapEx that is officially incurred should be recovered and should have a minimum return. In that regard, also, the framework provided a low beta, a low beta that, of course, didn't consider extreme scenarios. In terms of risk assessment, there was even the statements that under extraordinary circumstances, this could be reviewed, right?
It's tough to see that you don't recover the principal of the investment. That is kind of a shock for any investor in regulated businesses, right? Just that, I mean, just depreciating an asset without any usage of or traffic paying for it means that we are losing, as investors, EUR 1.3 billion of principal of the investment, right? You, I mean, the fact that a minimum return on the overall RAB is not considered means that we forgo another similar amount, right? A lot of investment goes in these types of assets under some predictability and let's say kind of low risk. Clearly the situation is not being answered on the way we expected.
In terms of other parameters, I would like to say that they're also way different from what Heathrow was expecting. It's a very wide range of tariffs, but also of traffic and OPEX. Well, Heathrow really explained well differences that they failed to reconcile, right? I expect a lot of documents to show why we have this disparity with these estimates from the regulator. Okay, during this fall and up to the year-end, there will be comments, and probably the final proposals will be in the first quarter or second quarter, and the final license modifications will be at the end of the first half of 2022.
Okay, if we move to the next slide in the AGS, I made the comments at the beginning. The summer was a little bit disappointing, but the same as Heathrow. Now we're seeing good traffic with restrictions being lifted, and the company put an effort again on cost contention, and that has helped the operational performance. The refinancing of AGS took place in the first half of the year, and there's no further news really material for this quarter to comment. If we move on to the next slide, we touch on construction. Top right corner, we have a rundown of the different asset sales that took place. As I said, quite successful and now they're over.
The real estate at Budimex, recycled aggregates at Webber, $140 million. Then other participations in Spain, in URBICSA, for EUR 17 million. The supplier payment portal in where we had 19.86%, it was called Alanda Global as well. Also a concession on a prison maintenance. Okay. All this is pretty much done and has helped the cash performance of the division. Also, the order book finishes at record levels, have been successful contracting, so north of EUR 12 billion. Well, we still have some pending to incorporate into the backlog, but not as much as in other occasions, 380 billion contracts.
Regarding the performance, I think that it's a solid performance, even taking into account that there's already some pressure on some raw materials, pressure on resources and inflation. We've seen that happening across the board, but nevertheless, we've seen a good performance. I also give some information here of the infrastructure maintenance services in the U.S. and Canada. This was part of the services perimeter, but it makes sense to keep it. It's complementary and has synergies with construction in the U.S. and Canada. To give you an idea, it has an EBIT to sales, an EBIT margin of EUR 9 million. Sorry, an EBIT of EUR 9 million. It's a solid EBIT margin against EUR 134 million of sales.
The kind of profitability that this business is bringing is similar to the one that has been sold off SCC, the recycled aggregates at Webber that was sold. This should replace that kind of profitability. In terms of other areas, Budimex is really trading at a very strong pace with EBIT margin. Even if we take out the extraordinary impact of the release of results related to the real estate construction related to real estate business, even if we take that out, the ordinary margin is 6%. That is quite high for this business.
Well, in terms of outlook for the division, as I said, we still see pressure on prices and resources, but the way it's been managed, I think it's remarkable, you know, that we tend to fix prices in advance and also manage more manpower resources when there's a lot of activity. The outlook is still that the second part of the year, the U.S. should consume cash. All these big projects that are being developed and trying to accelerate will consume cash. It's also true that many of these backlogs, these projects that were awarded, will bring some advanced payments. Okay. Moving on to services, I would like to touch on the divestment we announced of infrastructure services.
Here we announced the sale and also a partial reinvestment. This is a business that in 2020 posted an EBITDA of EUR 29 billion. Maybe this year it should be around 34, so growing slightly. The reason we reinvest is twofold. I mean, the main one is that there's clearly appetite in the market for players to log on to a platform where they could dilute overhead expenses. That could be. I mean, a lot of synergies could be freed there, and value could be created. Therefore, at exit, we could capture more value for that. It's an interesting business proposition.
We have announced that if we deliver along the business plan projections, it should be like another EUR 50 million, right? The reason to do that is we think it's a good business proposition. It's better to be close to the earnouts, but more important, I think that the sector is looking for this sort of platform that could dilute overheads and grow because I mean, there's a lot of activity in this regard expecting to happen. Okay, the environmental service in Spain and Portugal, as I mentioned, should be closed by the end of November, given it got regulatory approvals. Nothing else to comment here. The rest of the processes are advancing, right?
I mean, we are looking at Amey, oil and gas in the U.S., and mining services in Chile. Probably, I mean, I will take advantage and move into the next slide to discuss what's being left. Here, probably the 2020 EBITDA falls a little bit short of what these businesses could be bringing, right? Excuse me. In terms of the Autostrada Wielkopolska, this is a maintenance concession that on a normal year should make north of EUR 30 million of EBITDA. Of course, it has leverage, and we have to look at the value in terms of the dividends it can bring. It was part of the EBITDA you always saw in the services division in Spain, always making kind of north of EUR 30 million.
You have SIMSA, that is, regarding industrial maintenance of equipment and electric equipment in particular. Also an EBITDA of EUR 2 million, that should be higher than a normal year. Energy efficiency, that probably should be north of EUR 10 million on a normal year and growing to 20 pretty easily. We have EMESA, that is, a company that owns a stake on the venture that maintains the ring road and the tunnels in Madrid City. Okay? This is the kind of equity method we were consolidating. This is the kind of EBITDA in terms of contribution, it was just EUR 6 million in 2020. Right.
It has value of this EMESA and Arabia are more concessions that eventually, I mean, will be sold or will get dividends and should be measured in that way. It's an important chunk nevertheless. I would like to highlight the performance of Amey. It's recovering nicely. I mean, this is the perimeter that is being sold and is doing well in what we call security infra. That is maintenance for Ministry of Defense and Justice. At the same time, also highway maintenance and rail. In general, Amey is performing. It's the last one we have, big one we have for sale. Right. If we move to the next slide.
In terms of ESG highlights, I won't go through all the different accomplishments and so on. I would like just to touch on two things that probably has caught your eye. One of them is we acquired a ready-to-build 50 MW photovoltaic solar plant in Spain from InfraRed. This is for self-consumption . As I mentioned, is something we're going to build. We'll have others along the road that will help us in our goal of 100% renewable energy in 2030 for our consumption. Another milestone I would like to highlight is the push that Heathrow is doing with sustainable aviation fuel. Now, for the COP26 in Glasgow, all the flights between Glasgow and Heathrow will be powered by sustainable aviation fuel.
Heathrow will have a stand showing how much can be decarbonized from aviation. Looking forward to all that, you're invited to visit the stand. Okay. If we move on to the next slide. Here we cover the financial performance below EBIT. Here we have the financial results. I will separate them between ex-infrastructure projects and infrastructure projects. Ex-infrastructure projects, we have an increase in financial expenses. This has to do with higher gross debt that we have from the pandemic. Rates on cash are now lower, and we have more gross debt. This will be sorted out along a long time. Really, we didn't see those big opportunities during the pandemic.
Now we show that we are delivering on capital allocation. These kind of levels of gross debt and cash probably are not really worth it right now, if I may say. If we look into the infrastructure projects, here the impact comes from interest swap and inflation swap that is speculative on a non-recourse project where we basically have no value. Our accounting value is EUR -154. Of course, in any case, we tried unwinding that some time ago, but we couldn't get a deal done with the banks and the fellow shareholders. It will remain there, but as I said, it's noise. It's not that affects our value at all. I mean, that has negligible value, shouldn't be taken into account.
Moving below those levels, we get into the discontinued operations results. You see that we recognize results as long as they are below the fair value that we think we can achieve for the assets, and that's the reason why we have that positive results. Okay. All in all, these discontinued operations are contributing. As I said, divestments are following a good pace now, and hopefully, in not too distant future, they will be over. Okay, we move to the next slide. I mean, we see the cash generation. I would like to highlight maybe three things here. I mean, one of them is that we are investing more than other years. It's a, this is a good sign. I mean, we are investing in assets that can create a lot of value.
Divestments have more than covered for that. Of course, we have shareholder remuneration, and we have other financing flows. In other financing flows, here we have mainly the deconsolidation of the net cash that was at the real estate business in Poland that is north of EUR 100 million. Also we have the dividends that Budimex has paid to minority shareholders. All that pretty much makes up all the EUR 156 million that we see in other financing cash flows, right? Good performance in terms of cash supported by divestments and now we start getting dividends again from infrastructure. The first one to come by is the 407, and we expect other assets to be contributing in the coming months or next year.
If we move to the next slide, probably a lot of you have been waiting for this slide. I mean, the first thing I would like to mention regarding our investment in India is that it sits at the heart of the Horizon 24 strategic plan. I mean, we mentioned other geographies at the time, in particular, a little bit more Latin America. We think that Latin America in the coming years is gonna be more unstable and with much fewer opportunities from an infrastructure point of view. India, on the other hand, has a growing market that is well-established with very good pipeline, is quite transparent with electronic bidding. You can see pretty well how things are going in any operation.
What is important, I think that we found the best partner we could have, right? We are successful in terms of the company as we expect. We are partnering with an infrastructure company that succeeds in the primary market. I mean, if you look at the different information we have there's a huge number of global investors and infrastructure players that are crowding the secondary market. It's very difficult to get good assets in the, let's say, primary market, in particular, the ones that have traffic risk. I mean, there's a lot coming up. You have the ones that don't have any traffic risk. Here, I mean, the percentage that IRB got in the past is not very high. It's something close to 5%.
On the deals we've seen, the latest deals in terms of traffic risk, they are close to 40%. Of course, the ones with traffic risk need more capital. That's the reason why, when we are entering with an equity injection, because having a strong balance sheet here gives you a competitive edge for the most interesting assets. A lot of them are coming. These guys have done it well. They have a construction arm, but only operates for them. It means that they have the resources in a market that has so much growth and could be overheating. I mean, having your own strength to deliver is something that is very important.
Of course, another of the things that we looked at and we checked is ESG. I mean, these guys are compliant with the ESG rules in India. We know that they are not Western standards, but they also have a drive to improve this. Of course, is the purpose that we have also to try and to bring a push for improvements here. Anything that can be done here is really welcome, in particular, in terms of health and safety. I already mentioned that bidding is quite transparent, something that gives us a lot of comfort. Really moving ahead in terms of health and safety is something very important. Our construction arm won't deploy presence there.
I mean, they will assist, technically, and it's not that we plan to do construction. As I said, this company is self-resourced in that regard. Okay. Just the numbers here could be impressive in terms of growth. I know that some of you guys have pointed out that this country has a high cost of capital. Well, yes, we have incorporated that in our valuation. We haven't incorporated any growth of concessions, and there should be. I mean, here is the gist of the transaction. This region should grow in real terms substantially. Car ownership should grow a lot, and population as well, right? We're looking forward to this. This should be a great opportunity for growth.
As I said, it lies perfectly in Horizon 24. Tactics that we were probably deploying in other regions have been deployed here. Our focus continues to be the U.S. high complexity concessions. We are seeing a little bit more color in those projects looking forward to that. As I said, it remains our priority. We think this is, this could be a great investment. As I said, it sits perfectly at the heart of what we mentioned. I mean, we never commented India because we were more into Latin America, but we've been following this market, and it's probably a market that is more prone for growth in the coming decade. Okay. We move to the next slide. This summarizes a little bit what I've been saying.
I mean, we have pre-qualified in the U.S. in three projects. We are discussing other new managed lanes that could be quite appealing, and NTE 3C and I-66 are coming closer. Selective investment in other geographies, we already mentioned, this in India. Development of new businesses, here we are looking for, sustainable interrelated opportunities where we can add differential capabilities. You saw that there was a new appointment to our management committee, and Gonzalo Nieto is the name, will take care of energy, mobility, some new businesses, and also take care of the businesses from services that are not yet sold. Some of them have to be overhauled, and he will be supervising them. Of course, last but not least, we have to balance industrial investment and shareholder return.
The second scrip dividend was approved, and we have added to the second scrip dividend and the share buyback program that is still ongoing. We have added up to EUR 200 million of treasury stock to buy shares to amortize them. So this is not for trading, of course. Okay. If we move on, now we can get into the Q&A session. I would encourage you, I mean, to stay with us, bear with us until the end of the Q&A session, because there's also an announcement not related to business, but that probably is good for you to hear when the Q&A is over. So please, let's get into the Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you, Ernesto. The Q&A session will begin shortly. Please bear with us. Starting with the Q&A session, the first set of questions come from Alejandro Vigil from Bestinver. First question, looking at the potential investment in India, which is the targeted exposure to developing markets, is the 5%-10% percentage of the total portfolio reasonable?
Thanks, Begoña, and thanks Alejandro for your question. This is Pedro Losada, Cintra CFO. We don't have any specific allocation. We look at the emerging markets on sort of an opportunistic basis, therefore there's not a fixed allocation for emerging markets versus developed. Our focus is still, as Ernesto has mentioned and in the presentation, this is still in developed markets and high complexity concession projects, and particularly in North America. Again, look at this as a unique and attractive opportunity, but we look at this emerging market as on an opportunistic basis. Thank you.
Thanks, Alejandro. Complementing Pedro on other businesses, in airports is pretty much asset by asset, right? The asset has to be good. Usually, assets in airports are a little bit disconnected to the country where they are. We will look at specific assets, and usually they collect in hard currency. I wouldn't say we have kind of a geographic focus in airports. Transmission lines, yes, there could be something in emerging markets. In general, as Pedro said, and we mentioned the slides, the focus is in the big markets, rather than focusing on a specific ticket. I would rather not say, "Okay, it's gonna be EUR 500 million or EUR 600 million." That's the total.
Maybe there could be a tweak to that, but in any case, it would be a fraction of what we're planning to dedicate to developed markets and in particular, the ones that we like the most, like, U.S. or Canada.
Thank you, Ernesto and Pedro. The next question, also from Alejandro. Can you provide some information on the remaining assets and services after the recent disposals in terms of book value and/or capital employed?
Thanks, Alejandro. I mean, I won't get into book value. Probably our book value is still a little bit conservative, and I don't want to give a hint to players that are discussing transactions right now. I mean, the color I gave is that I show the financial performance in the first nine months of Amey, for instance. That should be a good indication of how the asset is trading, and probably that's all that's needed at this point in time.
Thank you, Ernesto. The last question from Alejandro: Would you allocate additional capital in Heathrow with the current price control proposal?
Thank you, Begoña. Thank you, Alejandro. This is Ignacio Castejón from Ferrovial Airports. Alejandro, if we look at the past, results have not been very positive from an equity return standpoint. I would say indeed, negative from a return standpoint. On the other hand, if you look at the future, in the context of the initial proposals, further to your question, there are a couple of matters, lack of recovery of RAB and low equity returns, that make me feel very skeptical about the appetite to contribute further capital into Heathrow.
Thank you, Ignacio. The next set of questions come from Patrick Creuset from Goldman Sachs. First question, what level of 2019 traffic do you see 407 traffic trending during October? And at what level of traffic will you feel comfortable to start raising tolls?
Thank you, Begoña. We are monitoring continuously the traffic evolution and also according to your question, in October, we see more or less the same trend as we have seen in September, and we have shown these numbers in the presentation. In terms of raising tolls, I want to remind that we are still in, you know, a pandemic situation with restrictions and as Ernesto mentioned before, you know, employers that are not deciding whether they are gonna ask employees to go back to the offices yet. Until those things happens, I think it's too premature to talk about the toll strategy. Thank you.
Thank you, Pedro. Also from Patrick, at what level of net cash position, ex-infrastructure, do you feel you need to keep on a sustainable basis?
Okay. Well, really we have plenty of lines. We have the possibility of issuing Euro commercial paper, but I would say none, but if you want, you can look about, I don't know, several hundred, EUR 200 million-EUR 500 million of liquidity in terms of, just pure operations. But, as I mentioned, nowadays there's such liquidity in the Euro commercial paper market, or you have lines, you don't really have to hold to the cash, but you could use cash. Give or take, that kind of liquidity for operations, I think is reasonable, for our size. But, very important, remember that you could do that having a net debt position, okay? It's not that you have to have a net cash position of that.
I mean, for liquidity purposes, you could be in a net debt position close to two times net debt to EBITDA and still have that buffer of liquidity, right? Let's not mix those things.
Thank you, Ernesto. Last question from Patrick. As you execute your Horizon 24 strategy with divestment and ramp-up of new projects, at what point can we expect a more structured dividend or shareholder return policy?
Well, in the end, we don't have a policy on purpose to retain flexibility, but we are aware that dividends over time should reflect the cash generation in terms of dividends or free money to our shareholders from our infrastructure, right? In the past, you've seen that we have had some sort of a steady dividend, slightly increasing. Of course, with the pandemic, we lowered that down a little bit, and it was reflected, not a specific year, but the overall expected performance of the business plan. As I said, we don't want to have a policy that could put a kind of restriction on us when we could see opportunities, but over time, you see all that free cash flow from our infrastructure moving to shareholders.
Thank you, Ernesto. The next set of questions come from Nicolo Pessina from Mediobanca. First question, 407 ETR, should we expect more dividends based on the performance that it has had for the fourth quarter?
Thanks, Nicolo. Well, we, first of all, are really happy that we are back with dividends, with this EUR 300 distribution. I guess, sorry, you need to bear with us on this till the end of the year. It's a little bit soon because the main reason that I mentioned before, it was about the recent tolls, we need to keep on looking at the evolution of the traffic. It's true that we have a very healthy cash position, very healthy liquidity position, and things are going much better than before. All the stakeholders has been okay with this distribution, not only the board and other stakeholders like the rating agencies. We will keep on working in that effort.
Again, it's perhaps too soon to answer that question. Hopefully, you know, in a couple of months, we'll clear that out. Thanks.
Thank you, Pedro. Also from Nicolo: Should we expect an improvement of the 2021 final dividend to Ferrovial shareholders compared to last year?
Well, if we are able to deliver on the additional EUR 200 million the board approved on share buybacks, definitely, yes. I mention about delivery because there's not that much liquidity in the stock and there's not that many days of trading before year-end. I mean, all in all, yeah, we should end up with higher remuneration than in 2020.
Thank you, Ernesto. The last question from Nicolo on IRB Infrastructure: Do you plan your business in India to go through IRB, or would you consider bidding for some of the projects by yourself?
Thanks, Nicolo. Well, the idea definitely is to go through IRB for any investment in India. We are new in that market. We think that this is a unique opportunity. Learning from one of the leaders in that market is not the idea to bid by ourselves in a new market where we have still a lot of things to learn. Hope that answers your question.
Thank you, Pedro. The next set of questions come from Luis Prieto from Kepler Cheuvreux. First question: How should we think about energy, mobility, and water investments in terms of amount and actual segments of interest?
Okay, well, more than the net amounts, that is not a, let's say, an important amount of capital allocation that we have provided here. In terms of energy, we are doing, as you've seen, some stuff for self consumption in for the photovoltaic. I will be doing other opportunities where we could have some differential capabilities, right? So probably the value is gonna be more on the buildup to getting that, and as I said, with some sort of engineering or EPC advantage with idea of then rotating pretty quickly. So this shouldn't be that capital intensive, and we'll try to take advantage of where we can add more value in the value chain. I mean, in a kind of concession that is not complex.
It's in the initial value where we bring our capabilities, and then we should be rotating. Mobility, you've seen what we've done in the past with Zity. We are looking at different things and how they could affect the performance of mobility around cities, but not looking to deploy a lot of capital. We have seats in different areas, even some venture capital to see opportunities where we could basically get know-how for other businesses. Water, I mean, it's an important value chain, and here we haven't looked at a lot of capital allocation, exploring opportunities where we could have an extra return. So far, we haven't found.
It's businesses where you look for edges in terms of capabilities that are a little bit differential. Probably of these, the one that could have more allocation and also nurture other divisions could be energy and its different aspects. We haven't committed yet any capital allocation for a business plan. I mean, this will keep evolving. In the fall, we will have more discussion here. We have a new CEO, and we will be looking into this, but it doesn't change the Horizon 24 slide that we should always have in mind. If we change that, we will be telling you.
Thank you, Ernesto. The next question also from Luis. In the case of Lilium, what should be your overall capital commitment?
Thank you, Luis. Thank you, Begoña. This is Ignacio Castejón again. With respect to Lilium, the equity exposure that we have is not material at this stage. It's less than 1% of the company listed in Nasdaq. Luis, thank you.
Thank you, Ignacio. Could you please provide an update on the disposal processes for International Services Operations, Amey, U.S., Canada, and Chile?
Well, Amey is advancing, and we're looking probably. Our aim would be to sign an SPA before the end of the first quarter next year. U.S. oil and gas is more but advancing well. Canada, that is, infrastructure maintenance in Canada and the U.S., we mentioned that it goes into construction. It has synergies, it's complementary, it has resources at a time when there could be a lot of activity. Chile has been postponed to next year, just to sell it after the elections. Right now, it's kind of on a mood where transactions are much more limited, so we'll wait till next year.
Apologies, I was on mute there. Last question from Luis. Does your potential entry into the Indian market derive from a more contained market outlook for high complexity assets in North America?
I guess I'll take this one. No, not at all. I think that we have been clear during the presentation, also Ernesto with, in his words, the main focus is still on high complexity projects, and particularly in North America. We think that the pipeline is getting better. We have been pre-qualifying several projects in North America. We feel positive to see, you know, new management in the coming future. That's the main goal of the company, as has been said, in any presentation, including the Horizon 24. I think that the short answer is no.
Thank you, Pedro. The next set of questions come from Robert Krams from Insight. First question: What level do you see the IRRs on new build toll roads in India to be built by IRB?
Thank you, Robert. Well, that depends on the type of project. As we in Cintra sometimes go for projects with traffic risk demand or with type of availability payment with less risk. In this case, it's split in three type of projects. The HAM, H-A-M, or BOTs or TOTs. That means availability projects demand risk projects and sometimes involving private decisions of existing assets from the administration. I guess just to give you a sense that that should be dependent on the asset in the mid to high tens, again, dependent on the asset class.
Thank you, Pedro. Second question: What level did you estimate the EV/EBITDA multiple paid for IRB?
I don't know if Pedro need to take this one. Do you take it?
Sure. Well, yeah. Well, whatever you want. Yeah.
Okay. Well, no, I mean, in terms of EV/EBITDA, our analysis was not based at all on EV/EBITDA. We had different equity discount rates for the different projects and type of risk. In construction, we only consider the margins for the next 4-5 years, and we didn't have any terminal value for construction, and we didn't put any value for new businesses that we could win. Believe me, the value creation opportunity lies there in all what's coming to the market. In particular, in the region of traffic risk, where there is less public money involved and where there's few companies that have the credentials and the capital strength to bid for those. As I said, no value was put in there.
We just had discounted cash flow of the concessions and of the construction business.
Thank you, Ernesto. Last question from Robert Krams: Is IRB's BOT division pure construction? It had 31% EBITDA margins last year.
Yeah. Thank you, Robert. Well, BOT, as I tried to explain before, it's one of this asset class with demand risk. The construction division, it's the one that is, you know, the EPC division is the one that is pretty much devoted on the owned projects. So
They own toll roads. That division has demonstrated historical margins in the area of 25%-30%.
Thank you, Pedro. The next set of questions come from Marcin Wojtal from Bank of America. First question, are you open to allocate capital to emerging markets other than to India?
Yeah. Hi, Marcin. Yeah, thanks for the question. Well, we've looked at investments in Chile, Colombia, if you may call them emerging markets, yes. Really the kind of total ticket size considered is not much beyond what we have already done, right? We remain again in Horizon 24 slide, where, yes, we look at these geographies, but it's not that we're looking to deploy much more than what we are doing at the moment, right? The reason we're also in this, because it's a great opportunity and also the things we were looking in Latin America are less appealing.
Thank you, Ernesto. Lastly from Marcin, could energy infrastructure assets such as transmission lines become an important part of Ferrovial's capital allocation strategy?
Well, as I said before, it's difficult to see transmission lines as an important part of the capital allocation strategy because of what I mentioned before, where we differentiate ourselves on the value chain is at the beginning, where you have all the engineering, EPC, and then you can rotate, right? Transmission lines always call for quick rotation on our side, so it's very difficult to say at one point in time, a lot of capital allocated or sitting on that part.
Thank you, Ernesto. The next set of questions come from Fernando Lafuente from Alantra. First question, construction has maintained similar margin levels as in the second quarter of the year. In Q2, there were positive one-offs. Are there any positive one-offs in Q3? Is it the contribution from maintenance services in the U.S.?
Thank you, Fernando. This is Iñaki García from Ferrovial Construction. Yes, you're right. I mean, in Q3, there is a one-off that is mentioned in the presentation. That is the sale of the assets of the aggregates of the SCC business in the U.S. The surplus of selling these assets was around EUR 13 million. Regarding the contribution of maintenance services, I mean, is also strong, EUR 130 million, I mean, with EUR 9 million EBIT. I mean, so this is not moving the needle in the contribution of the EBIT margin of 2.4%. Thank you.
Thank you, Iñaki. Also from Fernando, on the 407 ETR, what were the main KPIs that led the board to approve the dividend for the fourth quarter of the year? What should we assume for 2022? Is it back to normal dividend payments?
Thank you, Begoña. Well, I think, more or less I answered this question before. I mean, the number of KPIs is, it's numerous and because we do consider everything, not only the traffic evolution, the projection, definitely the COVID situation, that again, I want to stress this, that we are still under some restrictions, as well as the how comfortable is the board when it takes this decision, as well as the ratings is, that is one of also a very important stakeholder. Now, I guess, as I mentioned before, it's too early to understand, where are we gonna end up, during this of dividend.
Even more complicated to answer how 2022 looks like in terms of dividend coming from the 407.
Thank you, Pedro. Lastly from Fernando, regarding the sale of the services division, what are the cash-ins expected in Q4, and what will be delayed to 2022?
Well, in 2021, we should be getting something like EUR 1 billion. The rest should come up in 2022.
Thank you, Ernesto. The next set of questions come from Felipe Later from CaixaBank BPI. First question, what was the impact from the sale of aggregate recycling activity in 3Q EBITDA and EBIT of the Webber division?
Thank you, Felipe. I think I answered this question. I mean, the surplus on selling these assets was EUR 13 million.
If you exclude this, where will the dividend be in the 2.4% margin, EBIT margin for the year? Thank you.
Thank you, Iñaki. Also from Felipe: On the 407 ETR, should we anticipate some marginal tariff increase in 2022, or should we assume no tariff changes until traffic recovery to pre-COVID-19 levels?
Yeah. Thank you, Felipe again. Sorry, I don't want to repeat myself with the same answer on you know still under COVID. It's not a matter of whether we recover the 2019 levels in order to understand whether we are gonna back on the dividends levels or back on the raising tolls scheme. We need to keep an eye on the many things that are evolving. Ernesto also mentioned before the situation of the employment and how will that affect the traffic. We need to wait and see a little bit more. Sorry about that.
Thank you, Pedro. The next set of questions come from Tobias Woerner from Stifel. First question, how do we see the EUR 253 million cash position in the services business? Is this yours, or does part of it go with the divestment?
Well, I would say it's ours, right? If it goes with the divestment, they have to pay for that, right? When we have, let's say, book value of our assets in our books, it's taking into account the equity, the cash. If it has to go with the business, it has to be paid, right? We could consider it ours.
Thank you, Ernesto. Also from Tobias, regarding the I-66, can you give us a few parameters for the implied DCF valuation? What sort of ramp-up assumptions should we take?
Okay. Well, as you mentioned, a few parameters could be to be conscious of the high congestion levels of the area, as well as the GDP per capita is one of the highest in the U.S. The tariffs in the area, and the existing ones, are also high in terms of tolls. The users are used to these express lanes and toll lanes. That's why probably for modeling purposes, we believe that the ramp-up could be shortened because there are existing assets with the same kind of profile. Hope that helps.
Thank you, Pedro. Lastly from Tobias, your IRB investment comes without control. How do you protect your capital? Will you get any board seats? What will your influence be, or are you simply a financial investor?
Okay. Thank you, Tobias. Yeah, we don't have control. We are a minority shareholder with less than 25%, but still almost 25%. That gives us the opportunity to have two seats on the board, and that is 25% of the board of directors. We, in conversation with the company, also, you know, brings technical capability and experience in many areas, including ESG, health and safety, bidding, technical and finance. It's true that we don't have the control, but with those things, again, two board seats and a 25% stake, I think that we are relevant actually to this company.
Thank you, Pedro. The next set of questions come from Nabil Ahmed from Barclays. First question, regarding the dividend distribution of 407 ETR, are there any political constraints on paying dividends?
Short answer is no. There's no political constraints.
Thank you, Pedro. Second question from Nabil. Could you please elaborate on the genesis of the IRB transaction? Are there any previous relationship with IRB, or was it a competitive process?
It was not a competitive process. The interest of Cintra has been for several years, as we keep an eye on several markets, including the Indian one. In fact, in 2008, we make a try with a local partner for building opportunities in the road space. However, after getting a better understanding of the market, we concluded that, you know, the complexity and state of the market was not the right moment to enter. Now, we came across IRB as one of the leading players in toll roads and well, the rest of the positive and skills that we have mentioned during the presentation.
IRB were looking for partners and trying to, you know, capital raising. With our current approach and with focus on growth through this platform in such a really attractive infrastructure market with a huge pipeline in front of us, we don't foresee any potential conflict, and we decided to go across.
Thank you, Pedro. Lastly from Nabil: How do you manage potential conflicts of interest related to an opportunity in India? Can Ferrovial go alone on an investment opportunity and compete with IRB, or does IRB have a right of first refusal on any Indian project?
Thank you, Begoña. Well, there's no restrictions on whether Ferrovial can go by himself. As I mentioned before, definitely this is not the idea, and we are just stepping almost in, still approvals from regulators and more importantly from the company. We are not in yet, but it's gonna be a very first step in the Indian market. We want to be prudent and I don't see that conflict coming in probably ever, but definitely not soon. We would like to learn from them and as one of the leading players and take advantage of the growth that we see in this market. No, the idea is not to compete and enter into any conflict of interest.
Thank you, Pedro. The next set of questions come from José Manuel Arroyo from Banco Santander. First question: In the third quarter of 2021, the 407 ETR saw average travel distances rise by 7% year-on-year to 23.8 km. Is this attributable to a mix effect associated with higher share of heavy vehicle traffic? And if so, are longer travel distances sustainable going forward?
Okay, thank you, José Manuel. Basically, it's attributable to more midday and weekend traffic. As soon as we get more in A.M. peak, probably we will recover the normal level. I guess that is not sustainable again, if we recover that traffic in that part of the day.
Thank you, Pedro. Also from José Manuel: The current government of Ontario is considering building Highway 413 again. Can they legally build this road if the Canadian federal government announces an unfavorable environmental assessment?
Our understanding is that if they got an unfavorable environmental assessment, they cannot build that. I presume that probably is not gonna be legal. That's why they need to go through this federal environmental assessments all the way. They will decide in certain time period that could last even two years, whether they need to change the project or they need to follow with it or potentially cancel. If that happens, the last one, we don't believe that they can build the 401. Nothing has changed, actually, even the latest news from the governor, because he's the same one that was pushing towards this project.
Nothing has changed over the last few months since the most important thing from our perspective is that now that environmental assessment is under federal care.
Thank you, Pedro. The next question comes from Nicolas Mora from Morgan Stanley. Can you provide an update on the traffic of U.S. managed lanes into October after a lackluster third quarter?
Sorry. As explained in the presentation, traffic in the U.S. Managed Lanes was affected in Q3 by the surge in COVID cases that in some places was as bad as winter surge. We are seeing traffic levels picking up in October again as COVID situation has got under control.
Thank you, Pedro. The last set of questions come from Charles Maynadier from Kempen. First question: Would you consider increasing your stake in IRB in the medium term?
Thanks, Charles. Well, the quick answer is no. We, as I mentioned several times in this call, we literally learn a lot. We are happy with our stake and board presence in the company. We think that we can add a lot of value and, as I said, take advantage of the growth that we are almost sure that is coming. We at present don't have any plans to acquire majority stake or increase in the stake in the company. If we have any decision for acquisition or controlling stake in the company in the future, we will comply with all applicable laws and make all relevant discussions. It's nothing that we are thinking today.
Thank you, Pedro. Lastly from Charles: Do you see any significant impact from rising cost of materials and labor shortages in the construction activity in the coming quarters?
Thank you, Charles. Yes, I mean, it's becoming to be a big concern, I mean, in the sector. Also, most of our external costs are closed with contractors. Also, I mean, there are mitigants with formulas in some of the geographies that we are in, the second formulas, I mean, Spain and Poland. It's true, I mean that this is going to have an impact and also had an impact in this quarter, no? We are concerned. We are confident, I mean, that governments are beginning to be completely aware of the problem. Probably, some transitional measures, I mean, like in Spain, I mean, after the de-indexation formulas, will help.
Also, I mean, we will be prudent in our bidding offers. I mean, presenting our offers and considering these new prices in the bidding process, no? Thank you.
Thank you, Iñaki. There are no further questions.
Okay. Thanks for bearing with us. Yes, I have to make three announcements. Two of them are of colleagues leaving. I mean, the first one is Fernando González de Canales, the CFO of Ferrovial Services, goes with the environmental business that we are selling. He's a real star. It's been a pleasure and an honor working with you, Fernando. We'll miss you a lot, but well, you're in the same city, I guess, now maybe learning some German. We expect to see you a lot. Thanks a lot. Ferrovial has a lot to thank you.
Thank you, Ernesto.
Also, another great star, Begoña, is leaving. She's going to head the investor relations department of Banco Santander. We'll miss her a lot. She's fantastic. Congratulations to Santander. We'll miss her a lot. We have another great star coming up, and that's Silvia Ruiz to replace Begoña. Silvia has been controller of Cintra. She knows all the assets inside out, and she's met some of you investors in the past. A lot of movement, a lot to thank, and a lot to welcome. Thanks all of you investors for bearing with us. Take care.