Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to Ferrovial's conference call to discuss the financial results for the first nine months of 2020. Just as a reminder, both the results report and presentation are available to you on our website. A couple of highlights on today's results. Today's results are not a set of interim accounts as per IAS 34. Nine months' financial information included in our report has been impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak, mainly since the second half of March. At this stage, given the uncertainty about the speed and extent of the resumption in activity, it is not possible to predict how the health crisis will affect Ferrovial Group's 2020 financial statements, especially in relation to impairment tests of assets, fair value of discontinued activities, or provisions for onerous contracts.
Ferrovial will continue to monitor closely trading conditions and further evidence on wider economic impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, and will update the market on these impacts accordingly. I'm joined here today by Ernesto López Mozo, our CFO, as well as the CFOs of our business divisions. If you have any questions, you may ask them through the form included in the webcast. During the Q&A session at the end of this call, we will be reading out your questions and who they are from. With this, I will hand over to Ernesto, who will be leading this conference call. Ernesto, the floor is yours.
Well, thanks, Begoña. Thank you everybody for attending our conference call. Starting with the highlights for the first nine months, I would like to go directly to the strong financial position that we achieved at the end of the first nine months. This net cash ex-infrastructure of EUR 1.7 billion is higher than the closing figure of 2019. We have record high liquidity at EUR 7.5 billion. This has been helped by a very good activity from construction and services. We'll get into that later in the presentation. It's also worth mentioning regarding financial position, the financing of the private activity bonds of LBJ, a substantial reduction in interest costs going forward, and also on the back of patterns of recovery in the asset that helped to achieve a good rating and a good issue in the market.
COVID-19 has been impacting. We'll review the main impacts in our accounts and operations. In toll roads, clearly traffic has been impacted. The third quarter has been much better than the second. As the restrictions ceased, traffic was coming back to the network and also to our roads. We'll see more of that later on. In airports, there's a strong impact on traffic. This is affected, of course, by the travel bans and quarantines. We'll get into that later on. What our airports operations have been doing is streamlining operations and getting liquidity ahead of a potential extended contraction. In terms of construction, we have remained with high production levels, mainly in Poland and the U.S. EBIT margins have improved. The accumulated for the first nine months of the year is 1%.
We'll also see that services that is held for sale has performed well in many activities that are essential. Another topic that has been one of the priorities of management has been achieving operational efficiencies. Many of those will remain for the future and make the company leaner and more efficient, bring more value to the different stakeholders. The initiatives more remarkable for the size are probably the ones taken out by Heathrow and Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Southampton. The corporation and the rest of the businesses have been restructuring according to the plan that was announced. One of the main initiatives, of course, is the digitization of the support functions, something that will come along in the future. All these initiatives that have been launched, as I mentioned, should remain and bring value in the future.
Of course, even in this environment that is quite tough for any M&A transaction, we go on with our rotation of assets. I mean, this is part of our strategy. We reached an agreement to sell the Portuguese toll roads for EUR 171 million. Of course, there's no cash yet from that transaction. It's pending authorizations that should come in due course. We materialized the sale of a 5% stake in Budimex for EUR 57 million, and also we got the closing of the Broadspectrum transaction that was agreed with the buyer at the end of 2019. We move on to the following slide. We start directly with the impacts of COVID-19. In the P&L, starting with airports, as I mentioned before, traffic has been affected. Cumulative in Heathrow for the first nine months is a nearly 69% drop in traffic.
There's been also impact from provisions, EUR 103 million for restructuring and streamlining, and also GBP 85 million of fixed assets impairment. Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Southampton also had a drop in traffic north of 70%. In toll roads, as I mentioned before, we have to look at the different quarter by quarter or even month by month evolution. We'll get into that. The cumulative for the first nine months was a 44.5% drop in 407 ETR, 28% in NTE , 36% in LBJ, and 16% in NTE 35W. Construction, the impact we estimate from COVID-19 in the first nine months is EUR 44 million negative effect in the EBIT. This is pretty similar to what we had in the first six months of the year, and has been done with a bottom-up analysis. Here, we're taking into account the costs from stoppages, loss of productivity, and increased labor costs, and so on.
What we are not taking into our accounts is any, let's say, revenue from claims that we are processing for compensation. Okay. This is something that we'll look at into the mitigating measures just on the right top corner of the slide. In services, we had a EUR 99 million impact, and this has to do more with some reduced activity in some areas and some additional costs. Of course, if we move into mitigating measures and start with services, there's been cost reductions and also the benefit on some temporary flexibility measures provided by the U.K. and Spanish government. Clearly, services is looking to do also more streamlining, as we mentioned with other business divisions.
In construction, as I said, in terms of compensations, there's some claims being processed, launched or logged, and this will take some time, but there should be some success on recovering at least part of the effect that we incurred of the EUR 44 million I mentioned. In airports, as I said, the size of the effort is quite important with Heathrow OpEx reductions being north of EUR 300 million and CapEx reduced by EUR 650 million. AGS, even with the smaller size, is reducing OpEx by 34 and CapEx by 23. Okay. Toll roads as well, you can see the effort there, even though it has a low-cost base, even some additional initiatives. At the corporate level, we have the initiatives. As I mentioned before, part of that has to be with digitizing the support functions.
Of course, we took a provision of EUR 39 million for this streamlining that has been recorded in the accounts. Many of these mitigating measures should add value for the ongoing future. In terms of cash flow, the main effect probably has been the dividends from our infrastructure assets, and you have the main numbers there on the slide. The 407 EUR 159 is our share compared to EUR 222 million last year, and then you have, of course, Heathrow and other projects. Well, nevertheless, there's EUR 207 million that have come from our assets so far. We don't expect dividends in Heathrow in the coming months until either the situation of the waiver expires or we have a regulatory asset ratio that is the net debt to regulated asset base below 87.5%. Of course, as I mentioned before, we carry on with the strategy.
Priority, of course, is safety, liquidity, strength of balance sheet for the opportunities that could come around, and of course, also support for the community has played a role and plays a role while the pandemic is ongoing. Our focus remains on creating value for stakeholders, developing and operating innovative, efficient, sustainable infrastructure with high concessional value. The company is working on that, and hopefully we'll be able to reap the fruits of that effort in the near and medium term. If we move from that COVID-19 slide into the toll road section, we can see the patterns of traffic that I mentioned before. We can see how the trough in all the North American assets was seen in April. As the economies reopened, restrictions were lifted, we saw traffic coming back. We have to be realistic.
There's a lot of restriction to mobility still. Office occupancy is still low. We'll get into that later on. Also schools, really, the students don't have to attend in person. Even though they are open, it's pretty much online. All that affects overall traffic. Now it's also true that, as you know, there's more cases coming up. There's a second wave in North America and Europe taking place. Still, you can see that the latest data that we have from October up to the 19th, it still shows in many of the roads a better performance. One of the accounting impacts that we have in the operating results of toll roads is the impact of Autema. Autema, our appeal to the Supreme Court has been rejected.
You know that the grantor changed the terms of the concession from a financial asset into an intangible asset with traffic risk. We appealed to the Supreme Court in Spain, but they have rejected that. That means that in the numbers you see, you have the full nine months of 2020 with Autema accounted for as an intangible asset. Also in the comparison like for like, we've taken the impacts in 2019 as if 2019 had been also an intangible asset. There's no change, of course, in cash or net cash position coming from this asset. You see that the impact is relevant in terms of numbers. In revenues, the intangible asset first nine months just gives EUR 42 million in revenues, whereas as a financial asset, it would have been EUR 85 million. In terms of EBITDA, as an intangible asset, it's EUR 36 million.
As a financial asset, it would have been EUR 79 million. Okay. As I said, we don't have a net cash effect out of that, but of course, the accounting impact in the operating results. There's also an impairment into our holding value of this participation that I will get into later on when I review the results below the operating section. Okay. If we move on to get into the detail, we'll see that the impact from traffic has been, let's say, dampened by the good mix of traffic. Okay. If we move into the specific section on the 407 ETR before getting into the managed lanes, we see that traffic in the third quarter, even though it fell vis-à-vis last year, was clearly much better than the second quarter.
The performance in terms of revenues is also helped by traffic mix, even not to the same degree as it is in managed lanes in Texas. Also, it has been helped by toll rates being higher than last year. We have to be aware that the restrictions to mobility in Toronto have been probably higher than or bigger than in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Now with a second wave coming in, we have what is called a modified Stage 2 that reduces the limits for social gatherings and public events, and so on, since October 10th. That's also one of the reasons why we provided the number for October up to October 19th in the previous slides. Schools, universities, colleges, and places of worship will remain open, but in-person classes is voluntary.
In terms of dividends, I would like to highlight that in this quarter, there was a CAD 250 million distribution. That adds on to the CAD 312.5 of the first quarter. The board will keep an eye on the evolution of the asset for a potential dividend in the fourth quarter of 2020. If we move into the managed lane performance in the next slide. Here we can see clear help from commercial and heavy traffic. We see in terms of transactions, the drop vis-à-vis last year is much smaller than we were looking at the 407 ETR with that 28% drop, LBJ 36%, and NTE 35W was 16.2%. Look at this asset, that means even growing in revenues and the EBITDA compared to last year's.
Still, there's restrictions, social distancing, but heavy vehicles are showing more resilience, and we'll look in the following slides into the different patterns. Remember that heavies have higher tolls. There's a multiplier that is between 2x to 5x the light vehicles' tolls. In terms of restrictions to mobility, as we said, there was a quick reopening May the 15th, but then with the surge in cases in June, there were more restrictions. Even in the third quarter, there were up to 50% occupancy. That has moved on since September 21st to 75% maximum capacity. We will see in coming slides that occupation, in any case, has been below 50%. Schools still are not open in person. They've opened in October, not in any of the numbers we've seen for the first nine months, for the third quarter.
Financing, I already mentioned of LBJ is the private activity bonds. Just look at the yield below 3%, and these ones had coupons north of 7%, so interest payments will be substantially reduced going forward. All the managed lanes are operating above lockup levels. Let's see how the performance evolves through year-end. If we move to the next slide, one I also like to see the actual data, how it's shaping. We have all the four main toll routes in North America. You can see, I don't know if the colors you can see them correctly. You have a gray or light gray, a kind of dark gray or black, and a yellow one. The yellow one, that is the lowest in all graphs, is what we could see as the trough this year. That was the last week of March.
You have the gray line, light gray, is March first week, where everything was, let's say, at full cylinders. We have the black or dark one, that is the third week of October. Starting with the 407, you see that on the way back, you do get again the kind of shape where morning and evening you have more lights. This is important to bear in mind, even when you look into different ways of work that we have now. Flexibility probably calls for still maybe an extension of the peak time, since people, if they go to work, they go for several hours, not just for an hour or a couple. That calls for, let's say, some sort of usage of those peaks or higher usage slots in the day.
If you look into heavies, you can see that's a pattern that is very similar in all the roads. It's a very good level compared to last year's. Even in some cases, look at NTE 35W is above last year. If you look into NTE, pretty much the same thing. You have a very high and stable usage of the road, maybe a minimum drop or trough around lunchtime, you can see that clearly there's a high activity all day and very similar to last year or even higher. Even with this kind of traffic drop, you see that patterns tend to come back to what we've seen in the past. Okay, probably that's enough for that. We are at a time of a lot of uncertainty. We move to the next topic that is one of your favorites, the work from home topic.
Really, it's all about gathering more data, and we'll see when really the economy reopens, and it's not a health issue, how the different patterns pan out. We have some data here that is current data, or just some polls or studies by different universities trying to put a framework for you guys to make a decision on this uncertain environment. We have different studies. If we start with the top left corner, when we talk about observed behavior or polls or studies, all those paragraphs are related to U.S. information. Either from polls or actual or from universities, you have at the bottom the different sources. The estimate now is that 60% of the workforce could, in theory, work from home.
Of course, you'll need to see how that translates into what part of the time is actually carried out from home, if they go to the office or not, what employers are required. The level that was done from home pre-COVID-19 was between 5%-10%. During this COVID-19, we reached kind of the top or just over 60% in April, and now the estimate is that it's at 40% in September with restrictions still in place. Okay. Post-COVID-19, there's a lot of studies, as we said, we like to tread on actual data before making models. There's different degrees of work from home that could happen. There's a lot of emerging thinking about flexibility and employers wanting to have presence at the office, but flexibility to come and go and maybe some remote work. Of course, there's a variety depending on the different businesses.
Clearly, there is a mix that is not what we're seeing now. What we're seeing now, we have the data on the right for Ontario. This is based on the Léger survey. Here you can see that work from home is pretty much at 40% now. You have, let's say, the average trips falling around 40% vis-à-vis last year. Of course, as I mentioned, this is a work from home and a situation where, from a health point of view, you have to use it, not to a degree of flexibility, but probably more preemptively. Okay. Other information that is good to look at to see that not all the cities are the same. Here we have information from Kastle Systems Back to Work Barometer.
Here you can see that Dallas-Fort Worth, it's higher in the back to work or to the office with 40% occupancy. This is data from the 30th of September, right? It's good to see the difference between cities like Dallas metropolitan area or New York or San Francisco or even London, if I may. You have different patterns and also probably different share of public transportation, for sure. Okay. Still there's limits. This is kind of data that we will keep looking at. Of course, there's other very important levers that we need to pay attention to. The next one is e-commerce. Here we have different numbers gathered from the U.S., and you can see that e-commerce as a percentage of retail sales has been growing steadily pre-COVID-19. In 2010, it was less than 7%, and now in 2019, it was 16%.
In the pandemic, the percentage has gone higher, and in the second quarter, it reached almost 21% of retail sales. It's expected to continue to rise, to 25%-30% easily. All these are projections from different studies or sources, right? It's not only that this is growing, but the dynamics are interesting to watch. As I said, all this kind of data will be going into our modeling and going forward, right? There's some pattern changes, right? Some shopping that was done personally tended to be off-peak and during weekends, and this now moves to peak periods or in the middle of the day, right? You can see that relates to the kind of graphs that we are showing in terms of heavy traffic daily patterns. Also, the items purchased are transported by larger vehicles.
We mentioned about that in terms of tolls and intend to do stops that could bring more congestion to roads outside the toll roads. In any case, the overall system gets congestions from this stop and go. Then there's additional trips that are difficult to model but are happening, right? You have deliveries to households that have no car or mobility impaired. You have additional trips due to failed deliveries or items being returned. These are not minor, right? These are things that we'll have to check out, right? Then, of course, there's even more segmentation of the offer online. You go to, let's say, urgent deliveries. That could mean even more pressure on mobility, right?
As I said, all these are emerging data that we need to keep an eye on and probably are being seen more in the Dallas-Fort Worth area since it was reopening in a more ample mood than others that you can check. Let's move on. If we keep on with different levers or impacts that could affect the models going forward, we look into population. Of course, the data I'm showing you and the different projections are pre-pandemic, right? Of course, there's the question mark if these areas that have been vibrant will remain so. And in favor of that would be to try and diversify even more rather than importing things that were not done in the area or in the country, or even, let's say, having some sort of more synergies, right?
These are areas that are diversified from an economic point of view, but also are attracting population growth. You can see in these surveys, and well, in actual data, that Toronto and Dallas were in the U.S. and Canada, the top two in terms of growth up to July 2019. They remain in a very high area. Also, Charlotte is not doing bad in terms of ranking. You have projections that, again, they are pre-pandemic, but they had different scenarios by the Canadian Ministry of Finance regarding Toronto, and all of them show very interesting growth. That's another point that should go into the models, of course, with the current uncertainty, is very difficult. You have to try and gather data. It's good for sensitivities to try and work on this. Next slide I would like to move on.
As I mentioned before, is the economic diversification. That's key to a strong economy and more interaction. Also to see that the kind of customers that we have is quite diversified. I mean, the Dallas Fort Worth managed lanes, you have here the segmentation. Of course, the blue ones that are pre-COVID, in total numbers a different base. I have to check this, but it's probably a third lower, the base of clients that we are considering in terms of users for the, let's say, red one or burgundy, if I may. These kind of graphs, in any case, show that there is a very good diversification of customers. It's important for the different sections and the kind of patterns that they could have, that you do get it a look.
Of course, as I said before, in terms of sectors in the economy, we have presented this in the past, but it's a good reminder of how diversified these areas are. Okay. That would be it for toll roads. Let me move into airports, Heathrow. Well, Heathrow published results yesterday. I don't know if you were on the call, definitely very good information provided there. Operational performance, as I mentioned, shows quite a reduction in passengers affected by, let's say, quarantines and travel bans. You can see that Heathrow is coveted by the different players, right? You have 80% of the airlines are flying. In terms of outlets, we are only operating from Terminal 2 and Terminal 5, 77% of the outlets are open. You have new airlines coming in. That's important. They are already operating.
We are just looking forward to see if there's a Global Travel Taskforce that looks into testing. The projections from Heathrow that we'll touch on this soon are based on testing taking place next year and also vaccines being available. The Global Travel Taskforce is working towards this target. In terms of financing, I guess this is key given there was some confusion with the Heathrow note. Heathrow has a very good liquidity position. At the end of the first nine months, it had EUR 2.4 billion in cash, but after that, it has raised additional EUR 1.4 billion of bonds in the capital markets. It has also raised a subordinated debt in ADI Finance 2, EUR 750 million that is available, right? You have more than GBP 4.5 billion. Sorry, I said EUR 750, it was GBP 750 million, the ADI Finance 2 facility.
Okay, all this additional liquidity should provide the comfort in the sense that even with no revenues at all, something that is very harsh and is not happening, it could go for another 12 months. With the projections that Heathrow mentioned yesterday, it could go even into 2023, right? There's a lot of liquidity. There was some confusion regarding the mention of capital injection. This subordinated layer, the money comes in the, let's say, more senior part of the financing structure as equity, right? It's equity-like. That was the mention. Clearly, there's appetite in Heathrow for this kind of facility. Okay. Looking into the first nine months results, you can see that there was impact of extraordinary items like the EUR 103 million provision and the capitalized cost write-off of GBP 55 million.
All this, as I said, the provision should mean a leaner and a more efficient Heathrow for the benefit of really the stakeholders, right? In terms of the management effort that I think is huge. It's to go for more than GBP 300 million of cost savings, and right now they have achieved more than GBP 200 million, right? It's a good effort, and they remain on track for the remainder of the target. The different initiatives have taken place here, like pay reductions, using furlough schemes, and the organization has been restructured. Supplier contracts have been renegotiated and non-essential costs have been stopped, right? Heathrow really is on top of all these things, and the CapEx has been reduced by more than GBP 650 million. Okay. Probably for you, it's more interesting, looking ahead, based on what Heathrow mentioned yesterday.
They are looking to 2021 with 37 million passengers. Of course, with all these outlooks, it's high uncertainty surrounding them. Also, that's the reason why you get additional liquidity, right? As Heathrow did in October, after all what had been done in the first nine months, right? There will be more details in December with the investor report. This kind of projection doesn't bring any sort of covenant breach or ratio breach, and that's important. Of course, we always have to be paying attention and preparing just in case there's more delay in traffic coming back, right? The other point that got a lot of talks and coverage in the press was the Heathrow reopener.
Well, we should bear in mind that all the investors that invest in regulated assets in the U.K., and in particular in Heathrow, look at a regulation that basically acknowledges in the regulated asset base efficiently incurred CapEx. It means CapEx that has been done in consultation with all the stakeholders, mainly the airlines, and is good for consumers, and that it's recognized and has to get a fair return, right? Here with the fair return, the regulation for the current settlement really provided a low return with a low perceived risk, but even made the specific comment, the regulation, that in extraordinary circumstances, that could be reopened, right? I mean, the CAA recognizes these are extraordinary circumstances, and then there will have to be discussion on any, let's say, compensation, if it has to be done now or later, and the size of it, right?
Heathrow is going to be submitting strong arguments and evidence for taking action now. The way it has proposed to do it, that is to get regulated asset base back, is a very good way to reconcile of the stakeholders' interests and don't imply a cash outflow for them now. As I said, this is based on the regulation that has a risk-return framework, that is the framework that investors trust when investing in the business. Other stuff that will be going on in the coming months, so very active on this regard, would be the consultation, not only for the reopener, but for the next regulatory period, the H7 framework. A lot of this to come, a lot of work for Heathrow and regulation. If we move on to AGS, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Southampton.
Here, the management has also done a very important effort of restructuring and getting savings, and also drawing down on liquidity. The drawdown of GBP 38 million in the first quarter means that now the asset has GBP 35 million in cash and equivalents and net external debt of GBP 726 million. There was a waiver agreed that's subject to compliance with some liquidity conditions for 2020. There's ongoing dialogue now between AGS, the shareholders, and the lenders to see how they can take the company going forward. If, of course, this would be a kind of profiling of the financing for the coming, let's say, years, for the short term, until we get the traffic back. Here we should expect that it could be quite likely to do some capital injection, but limited and not really material in the whole balance sheet of Ferrovial.
This is something that for commercial reasons, we are not discussing now. Yeah, it could be expected that there could be some need in the coming months, more in 2021 than this year, of course. Okay. Let's move on to the next slide, to the construction division, where I think it's very good news what we have. Production levels have been very high, margins, we are now at 1% cumulative for the first nine months. Of course, this is a lot based on the excellent performance of Budimex, that is way above what we and management in Budimex expected, performing much better in terms of execution, winning contracts, generating cash. It's not only construction, the real estate division is performing great, right? This has been the main game changer in terms of our cash flow projections.
The U.S. keeps executing well, and we can say that in general, the division is kind of turned the corner and doing better, right? We think that the EBIT margin above 1% should be achievable. Of course, always, at these uncertain times, we have to be careful, but I think that we expect that. Also in terms of net cash, we shouldn't be getting cash consumption from construction. Remember that we were expecting to consume EUR 300 or more than that this year. It's not the execution in the U.S. that keeps at good pace, probably slightly better than what we thought, and also the performance at Budimex has been much better. I think this is very good news from construction. We can move on to services, is the next slide we've got here.
In services, we mentioned before the impact of some reduced activity and additional costs. Clearly, some activities are essential and going forward, probably even more so, since some of them reduce the environmental impact of human activities. Right? Here, probably it's worth noting that waste treatment in Spain has performed well, and also in the U.K. management facility maintenance. If we look into the level of activity, we have a graph on the top right corner, where we can see that in Spain, revenues are now at the end of September at the same level as last year. Right? Let's see. There's a second wave. It's different from the first one. The company is prepared, but the level of activity is always uncertain. Of course, the cash generation has been very good.
It's true, it's on the back of very good working capital management, and I think that the services management has done a very good job here. The sale of Broadspectrum was closed. I won't dwell into that. Also, other processes are advancing. There are subsets of the transactions, as we mentioned before. They are advancing, of course, in this environment, pace is not as fast as it would be in a normal situation, but they keep advancing. Okay. Now, if I may, I'll move into the consolidated P&L below the operating level, even though there's some comments on the EBITDA that I mentioned before. They are there in the slide in terms of EBITDA. We have the line of disposals and impairments. We have the additional impairment in terms of equity participation of EUR 43 million that I mentioned for Autema. This is not a cash-out.
I have to remind you of that. Also, there's no sort of commitment or guarantee regarding this asset. Right. Take this as an accounting effect, not that there's any cash outflow expected at all. If we move into financial results just below that line, really the main impact in the overall financial results comes from the fact that last year, the equity swaps to hedge the performance share plans, with the share going up, showed a positive performance. This reflects the, let's say, drop in the share price. As I said, it's a hedge for an economic performance for managers and employees. In terms of equity accounted affiliates, here, I would like to comment on Heathrow, the same as it happened in the past results, in the first six months of the year.
You have many impacts that are not cash outflow, but they are significant in terms of P&L, but probably are a little bit misleading. For instance, we have an impact of EUR 61 million for the fair value of derivatives, and as I said, this is mainly related to the inflation-linked swaps. These swaps are very important to hedge the regulated asset base and the gearing ratios. Actually, breakeven inflation has been locked in, like at 3.5%, let's say, on average. There's a variety, that could be a very good, let's say, benchmark for what's going on. The inflation realized is much lower, it's 1%. They are clearly bringing a benefit in terms of cash to Heathrow and protecting also the debt-to-RAB ratio. They have the mark-to-market based on lower real rates.
Of course, this is a very important topic that the IFRIC has to discuss. It's on agenda for the next meeting. Let's hope it can get addressed at that meeting. In terms of other stuff that goes in there, you have restructuring provision that will bring benefits, and you have the impact from Autema that I mentioned. You have an effect of discontinued activities, that is a mixture of fair value adjustment, the final impact of exchange rate differences in Broadspectrum, and the impact of Spain that is positive because it's adding results, and it's not depreciating the assets. A lot of noise surrounding the numbers. As I said, many of them are not cash, and others will be bringing benefits in the future. Okay.
Now we should move into the net debt evolution that, as I said, is better than what we expected. Here we have the dividends from projects, a much better working capital evolution than in the past. Of course, we have shareholder remuneration that is taking place. In other financing flows, you have the deconsolidation of the net cash position of Broadspectrum. You also have the effect of advanced payments in construction in dollars that are to pay for expenses going forward. This is a normal effect that has the counterpart of the lower expense. Of course, you have also a small part in the tune of EUR 20 million from minority shareholders' dividends relating to Budimex. Very good evolution, better than what we expected, higher than last year, December 2019. Let's start to wrap up before your questions.
If we move to the summary that I would like to highlight is, one, traffic is impacted by COVID-19, but the patterns that we see when it reopens are for you to assess. Clearly, when there were less restrictions, patterns were coming back in a similar shape as in the past. We'll have to see going forward. In U.K. airports, quarantines are really affecting, like in other airports. Testing is ready to improve flow, and we have the consultation ongoing. A lot of things on the plate, very important, with a lot of liquidity at Heathrow that is key. Construction is clearly performing. Really happy with how it's evolving. Of course, this is let's say short term. Looking long term, we need to keep the eye, let's say, in the forest and not the trees. Our assets are in very good locations with diversified economies.
Population is growing. E-commerce and mobility trends are interesting to watch right now. The long duration is key. The pricing flexibility to adapt to the different patterns we think is important. We'll see how this evolves. Of course, it's about focus. We keep looking for opportunities to grow, of course, taking all the different factors into account. For that, we have strong liquidity, and we are looking for operating efficiencies. Before the pandemic that have been accelerated, and some things can be done now that maybe are more complicated to do on a cruising speed, right? For example, at Heathrow. All this should bring value in the future. Last but not least, very important, the company has decided to pay EUR 0.20 per share. Of course, that compares to last year, EUR 0.40+ , and we keep doing the share buyback program.
That's the point. The main reason for this, as I mentioned, you have to be strong, looking for opportunities to grow, and we think this is a good balance. Okay, thanks a lot for being with us, and of course, now we open the Q&A session. Thanks.
Thank you, Ernesto. The first set of questions come from Jenny Ping from Citi. LBJ refinancing has been done. Should we expect the dividend to be paid later this year? When will you make this decision?
Thanks, Begoña. This is Pedro Losada from Cintra. Thank you, Jenny, for the question. It's true that part of the LBJ refinancing has been done last September, refinancing the private activity bonds, but still remain the TIFIA loan as part of the current financing structure. Our aim is to end up this year distributing the trapped cash that we have been accumulating over the last five years per financing contract. We are still considering different options. First is to see how the traffic performance evolves by the year-end. The second option is we are analyzing different financing structures that could lead to a refinancing of the TIFIA loan. Those are good options to end up with dividend distributions without any type of restrictions, but we need to find out whether we can extract equity value from these refinances before we take the decision.
The answer is the goal remains the same, but we need to wait till any of these two facts happens. Thank you.
Thank you, Pedro. The second question, also from Jenny. Can you give us a sense of the strategy behind the service sale? Will all assets be sold as one package, or will it be broken up in pieces?
Okay, I'll take that one. This is Ernesto speaking. One of the things that we are seeing in services is that there's a type of industrial buyer that really looks for things that are more specific, where synergies can be, let's say, extracted. There's some players that they could be financial but have some sort of industrial expertise that could be looking to certain businesses like, for instance, waste treatment. Others will be looking for facility management. It depends on the country. What we can see, for instance, in the U.K., there have been transactions that were complementary. People were looking to, let's say, complement their portfolio somehow. I guess that in sectors that are coming back for a situation that what we say tighter margins, now we have less players, that could be interest there.
The strategy is more piecemeal but makes sense because it could match more the interest of buyers. Right now what is going on is just some smaller pieces, some international stuff, other smaller parts of Amey that help to that goal. To get, let's say, out of the equation some parts that are maybe not suitable for the buyers that are looking for the more weight or important parts of the businesses. Clearly it has to be tailored in that regard, and when you see most of the transactions going on in the services sector, they are that, more specific rather than broader.
Thank you, Ernesto. The last question from Jenny refers to Heathrow and the ADI Finance 2 GBP 750 million loan. It says, "Another layer of loan, GBP 750 million. Can you confirm if this loan needs to be paid down before dividend to shareholders can resume? Thank you.
Hi, Jenny. Nice to talk to you, and thank you, Begoña. This is Ignacio Castejón from Ferrovial Airports , Jenny. With respect to your question, the terms and conditions of this subordinated facility are confidential, therefore, we cannot disclose to you the whole detail of that piece of debt. What I would like to remind to you is that according to the waiver that was approved with the Heathrow Finance creditors back in June of this year, no dividends can be paid by Heathrow to their latest shareholders during the waiver period or if later the date on which the RAR is not greater than 87.5%. Thank you, Jenny.
Thank you, Ignacio. The next question comes from Stéphanie D'Ath from RBC. What are your expectations for the fourth quarter and for 2021 in terms of ETR for 407 ETR's traffic? Do you expect a steady movement from here or a potential deterioration like the one seen in Europe?
Thanks, Begoña. This is Pedro speaking. Thanks, Stéphanie, for the question. Well, when it comes to traffic on the 407 for the next quarter and next year, we typically don't give any type of guideline, and more when we are in the starting point of the second wave of COVID-19 in the area. Presumably, that could stop the improving somehow from now to the year-end, but we don't know yet which are going to be the implications. Taking your second part of the question, we do see steady improvements for next year, but that will be pretty much dependent on several things, and that includes, obviously, the restrictions from the administrations that could impose and definitely could restrict the traffic.
If you take into account GDP consensus and the vaccine coming sometime in the near future, hopefully, that is some of the things that allow us to be more positive, looking as well as the differences between the severe restrictions that we are suffering in Europe with respect to the ones in the Toronto area or the Dallas area. Just summarizing, we believe that without taking into consideration that these restrictions could take longer than expected, we see improvements for the coming future. Thank you.
Thank you, Pedro. The next question from Stéphanie: "What should we expect in terms of tariffs for the 407?
Thanks, Begoña. As I mentioned, we are starting the second wave in the area and the surrounding area of Toronto and the 407. Perhaps it's too premature to understand how will this affect the tariffs, probably it's fair to say that we don't see any changes during 2020. As you recall, we do stop our tariff strategy, our seasonal tariff strategy that we lay out early this year. We pretty much believe that we are going to remain the same for the remaining part of the year. Thank you.
Thank you, Pedro. Last question from Stéphanie. How has the pandemic impacted the U.S. managed lanes ability to pay dividends?
Thanks, Begoña. When you talk about managed lanes, the ones that are able to pay dividends during 2020, it says LBJ and NTE. On LBJ, as I mentioned in the first answer, we are considering several options to extract, as we did on NTE, all the cash trap that we have been accumulating over the last five years, that has been the first five years of operations. On NTE, we are expecting to receive a dividend by year-end. Of course, this dividend flow that we are going to receive from NTE is lower than expected due to the traffic impact that we have had during the year. Thank you.
Thank you, Pedro. I did miss Jenny's last question, which I will go back to now. Can you elaborate on the mitigating measures of construction and services and quantify the potential of recovery?
Thanks, Begoña, for sending me the easy ones. We won't provide an estimate. We've talked about the impact. For commercial reasons, we don't provide estimates here, and we prefer to be conservative, so we are not recording anything. You have the impacts. Take a guess. Something will be recovered, but I'm afraid I cannot be more specific. I'm sorry.
Thank you, Ernesto. The next question comes from Bosco Ojeda from UBS. Can you give some color on the % of heavy traffic or the % of heavy traffic revenues in the 407 ETR and managed lanes?
Thanks, Begoña. Hi, Bosco. Sorry, unfortunately we do not provide this breakdown. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Pedro. The next question or set of questions come from Fernando Lafuente from Alantra. What explains the strong shift in cash consumption expectations for construction? Do you expect the business to be free cash flow breakeven?
Thank you, Begoña, and thank you, Fernando, for the question. Well, this extraordinary shift is basically based on good mix. Not only in the construction business, that I will give you more detail, but also on the real estate business. The real estate business has generated EUR 75 million, and due to more notary sales and less investment in new plots. In terms of construction, two things I will mention. First, better underlying profitability. We are seeing new contracts with better margin, and also the units that we are executing in this moment are also having very good margins in the early stages of the progress. Also, the working capital. Also incentivized by the government and the administrations, we see better collections. Of course, efficient invoicing, because we are reducing the time for these invoices, but also very quick settlement of the receivables.
On the other hand, as Ernesto mentioned, the gas consumption in the U.S. is better than our initial expectations. In some contrast with onerous contracts, with losses due to the delay on the progress, particularly in the I-285, because of the weather conditions, with delays part of this consumption, but also very good working capital management. Thank you.
Thank you, Iñaki. Second question from Fernando. Is there any positive one-off in Q3 for construction? If not, what explains the jump in performance versus Q2 in terms of EBITDA and margin?
Thank you, Begoña and Fernando, again. Well, two things I will mention. First is that you are not seeing in the Q3 same impact of the COVID-19 that you saw in the Q2. Q1, no impact. Q2, we saw EUR 44 million, and in Q3, we haven't seen any movement on that. Slight differences between geographies. The second is, again, good mix. Consolidation of the better performance that we saw in the second quarter, including, again, the real estate business. In the U.S. contracts, only the losses coming from the internal fees. In general, very good performance in all the divisions of the construction, but worth mentioning good mix performance.
Thank you, Iñaki. The last question from Fernando: What are your views on the full year dividend for 2020? Is it still to be decided? Can we assume that the €0.2 per share announced corresponds to 50% of the total for the year?
Okay. Thanks. This is Ernesto. Well, the decision has been to the second dividend, that is the last part of the dividend for the year, for it to be EUR 0.20 per share. As I said, we keep on with the buyback program. Again, we get questions and probably later on about what's the rationale. The rationale is what I mentioned, really. This is a time to be with strong balances and liquidity. We think that there could be opportunities on the way out of this situation that is uncertain in terms of the length and the size of the impacts in the different economies. We prefer to tread cautiously. There's a lot of uncertainty, but we think there could be good opportunities because countries will need to look for productive investments. There's a lot of infrastructure needed, and infrastructure has a very good multiplier.
That's the reason behind it. There's nothing additional.
Thank you, Ernesto. The next question comes from Philippe Leydit from BPI. It refers to Budimex. Can you explain the reason for the 10% EBITDA margin in the third quarter of 2020 versus the 5% in the same quarter of last year? Is this related with provision reversals?
Thank you, Begoña. Hi Philippe, Iñaki García from Construction again. I've already mentioned the performance of Budimex, and it's just the quality of the backlog that we have in the construction. As I mentioned, better margins and particularly, better margins in the units that we are executing in this moment. Also, in the real estate business, just to give you some detail on EBIT margins. Last year, it was around the 17%, and now it's 21%. You have another 4% difference in terms of EBIT or EBITDA in the real estate business. Particularly, coming back to your question, provision reversal, we have a normal reversal of provisions. Net, we have created more provisions in the Budimex business. Thank you.
Thank you, Iñaki. The next set of questions come from Martin Wadhill from Bank of America. First question: Do you anticipate Heathrow to require a capital increase in 2021 based on its revised traffic forecasts? Would Ferrovial participate in such a case?
Thank you, Begoña. Hello, Martin. This is Ignacio Castejón from Ferrovial Airports. I think from our perspective as Ferrovial, we see that there is no need for an equity injection in the short term, given the strong liquidity position at Heathrow. Having said that, no scenario can be disregarded given the extraordinary circumstances and the uncertainty resulting from the pandemic and its financial consequences. If such potential scenario of an equity injection arose in the future, Ferrovial would be seeking for a long-term balance between risk and reward, an enforceable and robust regulatory framework. Yeah, just to confirm that according to the forecast that Heathrow shared with the market yesterday, there is no need for such equity injection at all. Thank you.
Thank you, Ignacio. Second question: Do you believe you could increase toll prices on the U.S. managed lanes in 2021?
Thanks, Begoña. This is Pedro speaking from Cintra. Hi, Martin. In this particular moment, we need to see how things, as I said before, evolves, depending on the new traffic patterns, depending on how these new behavioral changes could lead for you to end up with different traffic volumes in different times of the day to understand which is going to be the toll pricing that optimize revenues. At this point, I cannot share anything else. Thank you.
Thank you, Pedro. The last question from Martin: What is the remaining cash out for ongoing U.S. construction projects that were provisioned in 2019, initially for more than EUR 300 million? We assume this refers to the EUR 345 million provision, which was set in the first quarter of 2019.
Hi, Martin. We're going to take this combined between Iñaki and myself, Ernesto. We're going to give you the number that we've used of the provision. Regarding the remainder of the provision, you also have to take into account that there's some advanced payments that have to be paid back. Bear with us. We'll update on these kind of numbers more at the year-end conference call, but definitely, we've used part of that. Iñaki, if you can take that number, please.
Thank you, Ernesto. I will focus on the balances. Out of the EUR 345 that were provided in 2019, EUR 144 were released in 2019, and EUR 74 up to date in September 2020. Pending, in terms of balances, EUR 127 till the end of this conference. Thank you.
Thank you, Iñaki. The next question comes from Eric Luo from J.P. Morgan. Can you provide an update on the negotiations for 407's Schedule 22? Do we have a sense for what threshold or level of congestion is needed to be reached to avoid a penalty next year? Are there similar Schedule 22 type clauses for the U.S. managed lanes?
Thanks, Begoña. This is Pedro again. Eric, well, the first part of your question, it's true that we keep on negotiating with the technicians of the administration to understand the impact under the basis that our interpretation, based on the concession contract, as we have mentioned several times, is that a pandemia is a force majeure by the contract. That should avoid any application of this congestion payment on the Schedule 22 from the contract. We think that we are working quite well with the administration and trying to find solutions for this year, 2020. With respect to the next year, again, it's complicated. Not only see which is going to be potentially the outcome could be similar to the extent that it's very difficult to understand and to define when the pandemia is over.
Again, since we believe we are covered by the concession contract, that allow us to say that it's quite difficult to predict what is going to happen on 2021, but as of today, we feel comfortable. With respect to the last part of your question, or if there's similar clause of Schedule 22 in the managed lanes, the answer is no. We have no such type of clause in the managed lanes. Thank you.
Thank you, Pedro. The next question comes from Ruscio Paiva from MainFirst. Have you seen a slowdown in order intake in the third quarter of 2020, or weakness beginning to show in any of the group's key markets?
Thank you, Begoña and Ruscio. Iñaki García from Construction. Well, yeah, you see less works in the Q3 2020. It's true that we see some delays in the bidding processes. Probably, this is a consequence of the pandemic and how it's impacted in the different administrations. In the U.S., when you're expecting to win contracts of big size in this year, we haven't had one of these, and this is due to delays. Also, we see that in some markets like Poland, probably the market is getting a bit tougher, and we are more interested in having, as mentioned before, a profitable backlog and not be so worried about increasing the backlog with contracts that we don't see the profitability because of this tougher market due to the reduces of prices and reserve of prices. Thank you.
Thank you, Iñaki. The next question comes from Nandip Bamra from West Capital. On slide 20 of the presentation, you mentioned Ferrovial has a strong liquidity for investment opportunities with the economy reopening. With Ferrovial now trading at around EUR 20, how should we think about the accretion related to a larger and more meaningful share buyback relative to new investment opportunities?
Hey, thanks, Nandip. This is Ernesto. Two things to mention regarding your question. More than the accretion regarding the typical earnings per share assessment, we should look at that in terms of value and valuation given business plans, right. We are not publishing our business plans now. There's a lot of things moving around. Of course, we have the different sensitivities. Two things I'm going to mention to answer your question. The first one is that you see that we keep on doing the buyback program. Rest assured that new investment opportunities will be benchmarked against the share price, okay. There's going to be good opportunities probably going forward. It could very well be also the share at some point in time. We are looking as a preference for industrial investment with a benchmark of our own share, okay.
That should give you comfort, I guess.
Thank you, Ernesto. There are no further questions.
Well, thank you all. Thanks for attending. A lot of information. Just hope you stay healthy. Thanks.