Morning. I'm Manuel Manrique, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Sacyr. Joining me today at this financial results presentation are Carlos Mijangos, the company's CFO. Thank you dear analysts, media representatives, and investors for attending this financial results presentation of Sacyr for the first nine months of fiscal 2021. Through this report, we are reporting for 15 consecutive quarters a profit increase of the company, thanks to the strategic approach of our business plan. There's still some macroeconomic uncertainty, therefore I believe that Sacyr's economic results up until now are highly positive, showing quarter-over-quarter the company's strength and soundness, reporting a 19% profitability increase and a cash flow increase of 12%. On October 7th, we held our annual Investors' Day.
At that time, we provided some details about EUR 2.8 billion that, according to our models, are allocated to our concessions, business model. We once again ratify our commitment of setting our recourse net debt at 0 by 2025. Along these lines, and we know that this is very important, for the market's assessment of Sacyr, I can once again underscore that we are determined that by year-end, our recourse net debt will be below EUR 700 million, as I said at the time. We are coming from EUR 1 billion just in March 2021.
As for this EUR 763 million in recourse net financial debt at present, we are already including EUR 104 million from cash flows obtained as a result of Sacyr Green Energy Management securitization fund, as well as the biomass management contracts tied to this fund was not included in the concessions assessment that we reported on our Investors' Day, held once again on October 7th. On the other hand, the operating cash flow with recourse, plus dividends coming from our concession assets amount to EUR 114 million. I would also like to highlight from a more corporate perspective two other aspects. First off, our fulfillment of our shareholder remuneration commitment with a 4.6% remuneration, and also with regards to our stake in Repsol.
As you all very well know, over the quarter, several maturities have been taking place arising from derivatives that we decided not to renew. As a result, our stake is already below 4%. From an operational perspective, the highlight is, and will continue to be in the forthcoming quarters, the progress performed in some of our major concession projects and the commissioning of some of these projects. As we already informed during the Investors' Day, there was a concession revenue increase, and all the dividends coming from such projects lie at the foundations of our high profitability and future growth in those countries that we consider to be strategic to the company. I would also like to highlight the financing instruments that we have tied to sustainability goals that we launched over the past six-month period.
Green financing in Valoriza Servicios Medioambientales of up to EUR 160 million, carried out in two phases that is directly linked to the attainment of targets of our sustainability agenda and the fulfillment of new green KPIs. Secondly, the first social bond issued in Latin America tied to an infrastructure project in the amount of $209 million for the Montes de Maria project in Colombia, which is very important due to its highly positive social impact in that Caribbean region. Next, the securitization fund in the amount of EUR 104 million that I mentioned before, the SGEM fund. Thus, our revenue went up by 3%, reaching EUR 3.310 billion. Our interest does not lie in increasing revenue, but rather profitability. Therefore, EBITDA is growing by 19%.
Therefore, we reach EUR 630 million, out of which 82% is also in line with our strategy, and therefore this comes from concession assets. As for EBITDA margin, it stands at 19% vis-à-vis 16.5% in the previous fiscal year. EBIT amounts to EUR 512 million, with a 33% increase. Net profit standing at EUR 60 million with a 28% increase. There is also an operating cash flow increase all the way up to EUR 402 million accounting for a 12% increase year-on-year, whereas the backlog compared to December 2020 went up by 16%. Therefore our this variation amounted to 16%. This shows once again the soundness of our results. If we excluded extraordinary results, this would have increased up to 42%. I'm talking about EBIT.
I would also like to say that the group's EBIT back in 2019 was EUR 680 million throughout the whole pre-COVID year. Now, we already stand at EUR 630 million as at September. By year-end, we're going to surpass this amount considerably. At that time, it was EUR 441 million back in 2019. Now in nine months only, we have surpassed such an amount, and we are already standing at EUR 512 million. Next, our CFO, Mr. Carlos Mijangos, will provide you with further details about the group's results broken down by division and the overall holding.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We will now analyze each division.
If we take a look at the performance of all three divisions in terms of EBITDA margins, we can see that all such divisions have reported an increase in margin. For example, concessions amounted to EUR 329 million, EBIT 275, reaching this EBITDA margin of 54.9% coming from 53.9%. Engineering infrastructure reached 242 million, EBIT 220, with a margin going from 11%-12.3%. Services reported EBITDA in the amount of EUR 79 million, EBIT 39%, and the margin going from 8.8%-10.4%. This is one of the highest margins in the sector because it amounts to 19%.
As for the contribution by activity in terms of revenue, engineering infrastructure is the one with the highest weight with 55%, concessions with 37%. As for revenue, 635,516 comes from concession assets accounting for 82% of the group's total. They are distributed as follows. 329 in concessions, 173 million in engineering infrastructures. This is from the Pedemontana asset. 14 million from the operational plans. As for the backlog, 78% comes from concession assets, 13% from engineering, and 7% comes from the services division. If we now take a look at this backlog, which accounts for more than EUR 45 billion, we can observe that in North America, we are in Canada, for example, with two key railway projects.
We forayed into this market this year. This has been a strategic step for the group. In the United States, we were awarded three highways in Florida, one in Texas. Chile is another important market. There we have been awarded a hospital, as well as a motorway, several maintenance projects, and a wind farm. In Peru, we have another project for the airport terminal and Chimbote the motorway. We have in Brazil the RSC-287 project award in Rio Grande do Sul. In Europe, we have three major contracts in Italy. The first one is one project in northern Italy in the Lake Como. We have two other concessions, the A3 highway from Naples to the Amalfi Coast and the A21, A5 highway around Turin and from Turin and Piacenza.
In Portugal, we have been awarded some railway projects, and in Spain, we have been awarded several projects, for example, the 12 de Octubre hospital, as well as several high-speed railway stretches, as well as many other logistics plant maintenance. As for services, we are reporting some successful projects as well. For example, we have been awarded waste collection contracts in Barcelona, also in Torrejón de Ardoz. Regarding facilities, there has also been a significant increase now that we are back to normal, and there are several relevant contracts such as the conservation or upkeeping of all buildings at a national level and in several capital cities. If we now take a look at the net debt evolution, we stood at EUR 5.212 billion in December 2020.
We were able to create 402 in operating cash working capital of EUR 255 million, and then we have the financial asset adjustment. As a result, we reach this operational cash that you see here. This is concerned with some debt of concession projects, and we continued to invest EUR 619 million over the past nine months. Besides, in February we had to pay for our Panama Canal award. Therefore, we have this net debt of EUR 5.717 billion, and this is going to be allocated to reduce our recourse net debt. All in all, we're standing at EUR 5.717 billion. If we now take a look at the recourse net debt evolution, we were at EUR 836 million in December. This is VSM.
This is no longer part of the non-recourse scope. We have EUR 12 million in terms of tax payment, EUR 14 million in terms of dividend. We have a finance cost in the amount of EUR 46 million and an investment of EUR 117 million, like 23 million corresponds to concessions and EUR 24 million corresponds to the machinery required in order to carry out engineering services. On the other hand, we have a payment for the Panama Canal award and also the VSM first tranche. Here, we still have an outstanding amount of EUR 40 million. All contracts are formalized, which are so important and that have been awarded to us. We have some final adjustments. We reach this 763, if we discount the securitization fund and the collection rights from all plants located in Andalusia.
We therefore come to this final amount of EUR 763 million. If we now take a look at each of the divisions, concessions reports a 2% increase in terms of the global revenue. If we talk about concessions revenue, we are talking specifically about a 21% increase with some significant improvement in conditions in infrastructure and concessions and the water activity. Here, there has been a 23% and a 16% increase respectively. As for construction revenue, for accounting purposes, this is posted in the accounting records of the construction division. We carried out several important projects such as the Puerta de Hierro project and many other projects that are about to be completed. Like, for example, in Italy, EBITDA grew considerably by 25%. Also across activities, particularly in the water division, that made a significant contribution in...
As a result of our assets in Chile. The average margin in this case is 55%, and the backlog also increased considerably by 15%, reaching EUR 35.524 billion. The equity invested is EUR 1.254 billion. Equity invested in EUR 1.160 billion. The equity invested in water was EUR 94 million. We have several new awards, for example, the Buin-Paine Hospital in Chile, the RSC-287 toll road concession in Brazil, the A3 Naples-Salerno highway, and the A21 highway in Italy, which is the Turin to Piacenza highway. As for the current performance of our current projects, we are about to complete the Puerta de Hierro project, as well as Rumichaca-Pasto. 95% of the project has been completed, with 23 km being already operational. Pamplona-Cúcuta is completed by 55%.
We have already completed the most important tunnel, and 72 km are already operational. As for Mar 1, 95% of this project has been completed. This is at the exit of Medellín. This is a tunnel going to the area of Antioquia. We have the Américo Vespucio Oriente. This project has been completed by 84%, with 1,126 bridge slabs of the new El Salto viaduct having been completed. We have Pedemontana-Veneta, which has been completed by 99%, and the last tranche will be commissioned before Christmas. We have Rutas del Este, which has made steady progress over this period. We have opened some new tranches, and then we have Rocordal Central, which is the area where several factories are located in the region.
It has been completed by 50% already, and it's expected to be fully operational by 2023. As for the breakdown for concessions, in this case, we're not including Italy because it's included under infrastructures. Spain, Colombia, and Chile have the highest weights. Here you can see the breakdown by EBITDA, by the number of assets allocated concessions, and water accounts for 65 assets, 52 are already operational, 13 are under construction. This map shows very clearly where we are working. For example, Australia, Southern Europe, the United States or Latin America, respectively. With regards to engineering infrastructures, this division also performed very well in this quarter with a 3% variation quarter-on-quarter, reaching EUR 242 million in EBITDA with a 16% increase.
With a significant effort having been made in contracts, we have been able to increase the backlog by 19%, reaching EUR 6.693 billion. If we analyze the effects of the Pedemontana-Veneta concessions in our engineering financial statements, revenue was EUR 317 million, EBITDA EUR 173 million. Engineering infrastructure shows a revenue of EUR 1.644 billion and a 4.2% EBITDA margin, EBITDA being EUR 69 million. Most of this backlog is for concessions accounting for 31 months of activity. This increased profitability has been reported by the different projects in which we have been working, and some of the highlights are, for example, the railway Toronto project and some new contracts in the United States, four motorways that have been awarded to us and new projects also being awarded in Italy.
If we now take a look at the services division, in this quarter, there was also a 2% increase in revenue. There has also been a significant increase in profitability with a 21% increase vis-à-vis the previous year, with EBITDA standing at EUR 79 million. This is particularly important. In the case of environment, we have new contracts that have been formalized, like for example, the Villalba new waste collection projects, as well as some new contracts that have been formalized as a result of the Filomena storm in Madrid. As for multiservices, there has been a significant improvement in EBITDA as a result of, or old contracts rather, that have been resumed after they have been put on hold due to COVID, and therefore, better margins have been reported here.
This is also due to the Casa Estore restoration service. We have been able to grow by 16% in terms of backlog and the margin by 160 basis points. Once again, here we're talking about the waste collection services in Barcelona, also, batch two in the city of Madrid for waste collection services, among others. Now let me hand the floor back to the chairman.
Well, before we start with the Q&A session, let me inform you about something that is important. As we already mentioned in our financial statements, there was a pending resolution regarding a lawsuit that had started in 2019, that had been filed by funds that had bought debt against the R3 shareholders, including Sacyr.
At that time, funds were claiming an early payment of that debt. According to the Madrid court in charge of this, a provisional judgment has been handed down in favor of the funds. This is not a firm judgment. This is part of a global dispute involving shareholders, the funds, and the public administration concerning the construction of these radial ways. We have to determine who is going to be responsible for paying the relevant liability once the payment of the asset is established, or the responsibility that the state has, the so-called RPA. This asset that is now owned by the state is being operated, and it's providing the service for which it had been designed.
Opportunistic funds through different legal procedures want to anticipate the recovery of this debt without waiting for the final procedure to be finalized with regards to the equity responsibility or liability held by the public authorities. This is a first instance judgment that was handed down and that was issued in favor of funds. In the case of Sacyr, we are talking about EUR 150 million being involved, but it's still a procedure that has a long way to go. As I mentioned before, it accounts for just one event in a very lengthy process. There were other judgments, two judgments that were passed in favor of shareholders. These were firm judgments, and these are the judgment that has been handed down in favor of the funds, but that can be appealed.
There are other judgments still to be passed to determine what I mentioned before, the so-called RPA determination. I insist this first instance judgment is decision similar to the one that was issued in the prior process that was also filed by funds back in 2013. In first instance, the judgment was passed in favor of the funds, but then shareholders were actually said to be right. Of course, we shall proceed to appeal this judgment with the higher courts that are relevant. Now, having said that, we would like to allow for questions from the analysts.
Ladies and gentlemen if you wish to ask a question please press star one on your telephone keypad. The first question is by Luis Prieto from Kepler Capital. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question.
I have a couple of questions, if you could allow me. First of all, could you please elaborate further on the legal arguments concerning these radial motorways, and to which extent the state is responsible for that, and to which extent a final decision by the state could have an impact here? Second, could you please provide us with some idea as to dividends and equity from concessions in Q4 in 2021, and to which extent the closings of the derivatives of Repsol could contribute to results in order to fulfill your targets for the fourth quarter? These are the two questions I have. To which extent the dividends of Repsol will have an impact on the debt by year-end?
Luis, as for the first question, I'm not a legal expert, but I try to put it as clearly as possible. We are talking about an asset with a certain value. The asset is established by the equity liability of the public administration that owns such an asset. On the other hand, we have a liability or the debt that is being claimed by the funds that intend to pay in advance or before the asset is actually paid. That is when we need to balance out conceptually speaking. As for the legal arguments, my apologies, but I'm not a legal expert on the matter, but I believe that the concept is quite clear. Carlos, would you like to take the second question?
Yes.
As for dividends and equity, we have EUR 40 million pending to be allocated, and dividends will be about EUR 100 million or EUR 110 million approximately. With regards to the contribution of Repsol, we know that we have a derivative of EUR 25 million in shares with a floor of 8.5%. Once the derivative is closed, we are going to report the final results. That is going to be a positive one.
The next question comes from Alejandro Vigil from Bestinver Securities. Please go ahead.
Good morning. This is Alejandro Vigil from Bestinver Securities. I have two questions about the radial ways.
Even though we're talking about a first instance judgment, this will not imply some short-term cash outflows, but perhaps you will have to allocate some provisions, and perhaps you will have to assess that for the purposes of your balance sheet. In connection with this, are you going to be below EUR 700 million by year end? I believe that this is the business cash flow, that you said there are no special transactions that you envisage. Here, you're talking about dividends plus the business cash flow, right? Thank you.
Well, as for the first question, regarding the short-term impact, if any, the group has generic provisions. Therefore, we believe that the impact will not be a significant one. As for the second question, we said that debt will be reduced below EUR 700 million by the end of the year.
During our next presentation of results in February, we hope we will be able to inform that. We know that it's going to be below EUR 700 million for sure.
The next question is from Fernando Lafuente from Alantra. Please go ahead.
Hello. I have a couple of questions about operational trends reported over the quarter, because it seems that everything is clear about the net recourse debt that is going to be below EUR 700 million. Let me talk about Valoriza. There was one quarter that was very good compared to previous quarters. Carlos, you provided an overview about multi-services. Could you provide us with further detail about that? In addition to this quarter, could you please provide us with some visibility or some guidance going forward for the next quarters?
Do you think that these margins for Valoriza are sustainable over time or something that the market could expect, for example, in 2022? As for the construction division, the margin without considering Pedemontana was a little bit lower, slightly below 4% compared to the previous quarter. Could you please explain why that happened, whether it was a cost-related issue or whether it was a supply related issue, and what we should expect with regards to margins from the construction division for the last quarter and also for next year?
Fernando, let me answer with regards to multi-services. We believe that is sustainable, and we believe that we'll be able to report more or less the same growth as reported up until now.
As for the slight drop in margins, in fact, as explained some time ago, there were some effects coming from supplies and raw materials. In our case, let me remind you what I mentioned at the time. We have 10% of the group's EBITDA sitting here. We take a conservative approach, and whatever is currently being negotiated is reported at zero. I would like to emphasize that we have reviewed the pricing of several private contracts. The Ministry of Development has already sent to the Ministry of Economy an attachment in order to reverse some pricing reviews. We report all that at zero, and that's why perhaps there has been this slight impact on the quarter reported for this quarter, but we expect to reverse that.
The next question is by João Safara from Santander.
Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. I have two questions. Going back to the judgment issue, could you please remind us of the two judgments or sentences you mentioned that were issued in favor of shareholders, just to have it clear? So that's my first question. The second question, based on the EBITDA reported by Pedemontana, I believe that this quarter you are reporting EUR 64 million by contrast with EUR 4,050 million in prior periods. Could you please provide us with more details as for the run rate we should expect for the forthcoming months?
As for the first question, this dispute with funds that started in 2013, there was first a statement procedure that was rejected. They therefore continue with the proceeding that was approved by the judge that was subsequently declined by the upper court.
This was just another development as part of this dispute. As for the second question, it's quite technical to explain how we calculate the financial asset for a concession project. Since this depends on the investment made, when you have months of high investments, you report more EBITDA. When you have less investments and Pedemontana is about to be completed, EBITDA comes down. However, on average, we are talking about the same values over this quarter.
The next question is by Filipe Leite from CaixaBank. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I have two questions. The first question is concerned with services. Could you please elaborate on the news that apparently there are some operators that might be interested in your services division? Might you be keen on selling your services division?
Second, I would like to know about the evolution of the first nine months. With regards to the performance of the recourse net debt and also talking about leverage.
If you mean that yesterday a fund contacted us to express their interest, actually such a fund never contacted us. Such news was not correct. We said, however, at the time that services, the services division is not for sale right now, but we are always analyzing new opportunities that may come along, depending of course, on the price put on the table and depending on the market terms and conditions. We mentioned this already during our Investors Day in Seville. As for working capital right now, there was cash inflows in the amount of EUR 11 million.
Usually the last quarter reports a higher figure. Therefore, if you take a look at this difference between the group's working capital and the recourse working capital, this is therefore related to working capital from concessions. We have a cash inflow of EUR 11 million right now reported after these first nine months of the year.
There are no further questions.
Good morning, everybody. We have one question coming via webcast. The first question has already been addressed by the chairman. The question was about raw materials or commodities. Then there is another question, and the question is whether we are keen on infrastructure concessions with a demand risk implicit to them. For example, there are other competitors or other successful competitors of ours in North America that deal with this kind of assets that have an implicit demand risk.
Well, as we have mentioned, 90-some% of our concessions are not tied to any demand risk, so that shows which our approach is. 94, 95% is demand risk-free, or such, demand risk is highly offset. That's our approach. Nonetheless, sometimes demand risk, since it has such a big track record, risk may be very low, so we might consider those scenarios when there is very little actual risk. We have received some other questions from some shareholders that we are going to address afterwards. We will send you a response from the Investor Relations office. Let me combine some questions about the radial issue. I believe this has already been answered, but the question is whether this t-judgment might be appealed and whether things might change through the RPA and what Sacyr expects.
Based on what the Chairman said, we should not allocate provisions for the total amount being claimed. I believe I have already answered. We will have to net out what we get from the RPA or the value assigned to the asset. The asset is there. These roads are being operated right now. They have a certain value, so that value has to be netted out with a debt value. If there's any difference in favor or against, that will be the ultimate value. Then we have our proportional share of about 25%. Whether this judgment can be appealed or not, the answer is yes, it can be appealed, but we still need to analyze the judgment more thoroughly.
We need to obtain some clarification about the substance of the judgment, and then our legal and external legal counselors will carry out an assessment on the situation. Of course, we need to obtain some further clarification again about the substance of the sentence. This is a lengthy process. This is just an incident in what we call a general context, where we already had some incidents before that were eventually worked out in favor of shareholders.
There are no more questions coming via webcast, so I give the floor back to the chairman.
If there are no further questions, once again, I would like to wish you good health, and thank you very much for your interest in attending this financial results presentation. We shall meet you all at the next presentation when we will be reporting our annual results.
Thank you very much and have a nice day.