Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Mota-Engil First Half 2024 Results Presentation. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, we will run a Q&A session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star five on your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the call over to Pedro Arrais. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good afternoon to you all that are attending this call, where we will present the first half 2024 results. With me, I have here Mr. Carlos Mota Santos, the Chairman and CEO of the company, and Mr. José Carlos Nogueira, the CFO. As usual, we will start with the CEO, Carlos Mota Santos, that will make the presentation on some key highlights. Then I will make the bulk of presentation. Mr. Carlos Mota Santos will present the final remarks and the outlook, and at the end, we will have the usual Q&A session. Please, Carlos, the floor is yours.
Hello to everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you for attending the first half of the year results of Mota-Engil Group. Moving or starting by this, slide number 3 of the presentation that we have with you, with the key highlights, I would like to stress that, although we have a very strong performance in terms of turnovers, in the first half of this year, we were able to grow our backlog. So this is a sign that even we consumed around EUR 2.7 billion of our backlog, we were able to not to grow the backlog when compared with the end of the year of 2023, and reaching again new records in terms of backlog by the end of the first half of the year.
But more importantly than the level of the backlog is the quality of the backlog that is composed with projects with bigger dimensions, with higher maturities and with a profile in terms of profitability and in terms of cash flow that are in line with our strategy. And the fact is that even though we grew around 7% in terms of turnover, we have a much higher growth in terms of profitability. We almost reached EUR 400 million of EBITDA. This is the record high EBITDA in the first half of the year, reaching a 15% margin. That is a sign of the quality of the backlog and the capacity of execution that was mentioned.
But as important, though, as that was the growth that we achieved in terms of the net profit after minority. So we reached almost EUR 50 million in the first half of the year. That represents a growth of over 60% when compared with the first half of 2023. Although the growth of the profitability and the growth of the turnover is one of the key aspects that we have, we've been also stressing a lot the attention that we are giving to the financial results and to some aspects in terms of balance sheets. So we are continuing to accomplish what we aim to do, that is, to have the debt controlled.
We are with a net debt of a bit below two times, as we've been reaching or delivering since the end of the year of 2022. The gross debt also is below four times. We reached this already last year, and our commitment is to every time, every year, to be below the four times. This is one of the goals that we have underneath our strategic plan for 2026. And also, I can say that we presented a diminishing of the gross debt when compared with the end of 2023. The CapEx was higher than last year at the same time, in the first half of the year, but this is in line with the execution that we had foreseen because of the starting of several contracts, namely, mining contracts.
As you can see, 80%, over 80% of this CapEx of EUR 300 million was related with growth and especially long-term contracts in Africa. Despite that, and we are going to talk about the guidance for 2024, we expect to have a CapEx in the end of the year that is fairly below the CapEx that we had last year. In terms of cash flow, we had a very big increase in terms of operational cash flow. That is a sign of the quality of our execution and also the quality of our backlog.
In terms of equity, I would like to stress that we had a growth when compared to year on year, but we had exactly the same level of equity that we reached in the end of 2023, after paying the dividends, not only the dividends of the group, but also some dividends of our some companies within inside of the group. So this is a proof that we are managing, I will say, fairly well our balance sheets and that the road that we have ahead to reach average ratio financial autonomy above 15% by the end of 2026 is being made, and that we expect by the end of the year to have financial autonomy paving that way.
Above the 10% that we presented at the end of 2023 and at the end of this first half of the year. Moving to slide 4, just to highlight that we have this execution of our backlog with the profitability that is translated in the best EBITDA that we reach in the first half of the year ever. Also, this is a proof that our commercial strategy, that is a strategy that is more selective towards bigger projects with higher cash flow and profitability profile, and also with bigger maturities, is being having its fruits.
And our aim, as explained in the strategic plan of 2026, is to focus on the profitability, on the cash generation, and in reinforcing our balance sheet, maintaining this asset policy rotation that we've been facing and delivering. And just to let you know that during this first half of the year, we sold a 9% stake of Lineas to our new partner in Lineas. Also, we got the green light coming from the Competition Authority to have the transaction of the two concessions in Mexico, and hopefully, no, for sure, on the second half of this year, we are also going to make the transaction or materialize the transaction of our Polish operations.
So we are very much focused in the core markets, on the core business, and it's necessary. I would like to stress that almost 80% of our backlog in the first half of the year is concerning these core markets, these core activities that we categorize in the strategic plan. And that the major opportunities that we have in our current pipeline are also towards these core markets and core business. So in a nutshell, we had a very good performance in the first half of 2024, and I'm very confident not only for the end of the year, but also towards the 2025 and 2026, when we for sure are going to reach all the goals that we designed in our strategic plan.
I'm moving now again to Pedro Arrais, for him to make. Sorry. Last but not least, we introduce a new slide here concerning sustainability. As you know, sustainability is one of the main pillars that we have in our strategic plan. I would like to emphasize that during the first half of the year, we created new dimensions of our sustainability policy, but also we created new KPIs in order to measure the performance that we are having in our sustainability policy. By the end of the year, when we present the full year results, we are going to give more details, namely more details in the accomplishment of some of the KPIs, and also more details on the metrics of these KPIs. Thank you. I'm moving on to Pedro.
Thank you, Carlos. Let's move to slide seven, very briefly. It is important to see in the breakdown of the P&L, highlighting the record level of capacity in terms of production with a record level of turnover and also EBITDA in first half of the year, with a performance very positive and aligned with the strategic plan that established the goals up to 2026. With the sustainable growth, the company shows that even with the context of highest interest rates, globally speaking, the company was able to achieve a very relevant increase of 65% year-on-year of the net profit to EUR 149 million, and with a positive trend regarding the increase of the net margin.
Moving to Slide 8, here we can see the detailed performance by business units, and we can see a solid growth of 7% from engineering construction division, with a 14% EBITDA margin in this division, in consequence of an increase of the diversification in segments of higher margins, like industrial engineering, putting Mota-Engil with one of the best operational margins comparing with the other European peers. In Environment, this division presented a stable evolution with an increase of 4% in turnover and also in EBITDA, with a resilient margin of 21%. Regarding Mota-Engil Capital and Next, the most recent business units, we can see a stable margin in line with the driver of diversification in the early stage of these business units.... Moving to Slide 9.
We can see here, and it's important to highlight not only the 6% growth year to date of our backlog, but this figure shows the continuous reinforcement of the new contracts of larger size and long term, showing the capacity of the company to deliver. And in the commercial front, from receiving new challenges from its clients that are putting the company in the recent years at record levels of execution and with positive outlook for the next years.
In this sense, I would like to, in this slide, to emphasize that with the EUR 3.3 billion awarded in the first half of 2024, the contracts already signed after June, that represents more than $1.5 billion, and the strong pipeline, mainly in the core markets, we are fully convinced that 2024 will be one of the most successful years in terms of total order intake annually. Looking in detail, we can see here in this slide that the core markets represents 79% of total backlog, with Angola, Mexico, and Nigeria as the markets with a higher amount of this backlog. 60% of the backlog is in Africa.
Traditionally, the business unit with the highest margin and with the majority in segments of higher margins, such as mining contracts and railway, and with relevant projects to start in the second half of 2024 and 2025. The contract signed after June shows also the capacity to compete with the best companies in the world, considering the Tier 1 clients that Mota-Engil are working with. And we have here the examples like Pemex or Managem. And finally, considering the contracts signed after June, it's important to say that the company has nowadays a comfortable backlog, roughly for the next three years. Moving to slide 10, I will not elaborate on that, but we can see here the continuous execution of the strategic plan that is allowing to a relevant change regarding the focus and the footprint of our company in core markets.
Here we can see that fourteen of the nineteen projects listed above EUR 200 million are located in the core markets. In Slide 11, we can see that the company made a total CapEx of EUR 309 million. As Carlos Mota Santos said, "With growth in long-term contracts representing 80%, mainly channeled to Africa and industrial engineering, in line with the initial stage of these recent projects awarded." Also important to mention that Mota-Engil made a continuous optimization regarding new equipment management solutions that allows Mota-Engil to achieve a best-in-class figure regarding the ratio of maintenance CapEx by sales.
That in June, was below 2%, reflecting a more efficiency in the management of the heavy equipment and procurement, and being, in this sense, a relevant contributor to the improvement of E&C margins overall, and allowing a higher capacity to allocate investment in growth and long-term contracts. Moving to slide 12, we can see a positive trend in the working capital management, confirming the positive evolution of the last years, revealing positive results from working in a very close partnership with the clients to identify the most suitable solutions to finance each new contract, with a higher contribution from the relation with export credit agencies, DFIs, that improved our performance regarding the working capital management.
In fact, the consolidation in the recent years of the improvement of the working capital management allows the company to achieve, in June, a solid ratio of -5% of working capital by turnover, and a very positive contribution in the financial autonomy, like we can see here in the graph at the right, with 10% of financial autonomy. Moving to slide 13, we can see here the improvement year on year of the free cash flow from operations to EUR 438 million, a significant improvement of more than 150% year on year, or an increase of EUR 264 million. We can see also the record level of EBITDA generated, the cash needed to support the investment to maintain the solid growth for the next years.
In the same way, we can see that the company was able to grow with an increase in the cash flow generation, with a controlled level of debt when we see that the total amount of net debt with leasing factoring confirming reduced EUR 13 million . Moving to slide 14, we can see here with more detail the evolution of our debt. Considering the seasonality of the performance at Mota-Engil, it is important to mention that the debt evolution is aligned with the strategy of value creation, reflected in a control level of net debt to EBITDA of 1.4x , and the same of last December, and important to remember, the best ratio in more than a decade. We can also see the maintenance of both ratios quite below the goals established in the strategic plan.
Important to mention here the reimbursements in the second quarter of 2024 of the lastEUR 75 million of the Angolan bonds that achieved the maturity at the end of May. Move to slide 15. We can see the comfortable liquidity position with more than EUR 1.2 billion . That equals the non-revolving financial installments for the next three years. It's worth to highlight that from the debt with maturities with less than, you know, one year, EUR 374 million are already refinanced or to be refinanced shortly.
Also important to mention, the average gross debt maturity of 2.5 years, and the average cost of debt in line with the increase of interest rates worldwide, and also reflecting the mix of local currency debt in core markets in Africa and Latam, with, as you know, higher rates comparing to Europe. Let's see the evolution of each business unit, and moving to slide 19. Starting by the European division, E&C, we can see that the turnover was up 2% year-on-year, with Portugal representing 73%, and with an improvement of margins from 5%-7%, and a comfortable backlog of EUR 1 billion only in Portugal.
Here, important to remind you that we are not including Poland, that are only expecting the final authorizations to make the conclusion of the sale by an EV of EUR 90 million, expected to be concluded in the second half of 2024. Regarding the pipeline, the perspectives for the next year in the Portuguese markets, of course, the most relevant project is the high-speed train here in Portugal. And here, after a significant investment, you know, of time, resources to study in detail the first tender between Porto and Oiã, and considering that the consortium of the Portuguese companies, led by Mota-Engil, where we are the sole valid bidder, we have strong expectations for the results to be known in the next months.
The company has already announced it by our CEO, Mr. Carlos Mota Santos, that we'll submit a bid for the second tender already launched, and with an amount of EUR 1.6 billion and other infrastructure projects in upcoming years in Portugal. In conclusion, we are positive about the dynamic in the Portuguese market for the next years. Moving to slide 21. In Africa, important to mention that Mota-Engil Africa were preparing and investing in the starting stage of the recent contracts awarded, and that will start between the second half of 2024 and some in 2025. We are able to a stabilization of the EBITDA margin of around 21%, above the guidance, historical guidance of 20%, and with 55% achieved in the first half of turnover from the core markets, such as Angola, Nigeria, and Mozambique.
At June, important to mention also that the total backlog achieved a new record in Africa of EUR 8.5 billion. Also important to comment that the risk mitigation scheme is very robust in Africa, considering that 98% of the contracts are signed with Tier 1 clients and financed by multilaterals or public guarantee financed by financial institutions. Also important to highlight the successful performance of the PPP project in the Lobito Corridor in the first year of operation, and also the positive outlook in Africa, namely in Nigeria and Angola, and also with some new opportunities in the mining contracts, where Mota-Engil has nowadays a leadership position in the continent. Moving to slide 23, to Latam.
Latin America showed a growth of 12% year-on-year in turnover to roughly EUR 1.5 billion , and with Mexico and Brazil with a positive contribution, considering a 20% growth year-on-year in two markets, Brazil and Mexico, and with EBITDA overall in the region, with an increase of 24% year-on-year, improving the margin to 11%. Looking to the future, important to mention that Mota-Engil Mexico is focusing in supporting the Mexican economy to grab the huge opportunity that is nearshoring. In Brazil, the investment plan for the next years is also a relevant driver for future growth.
Looking to Mexico, as you know, the main market in Latam, Mota-Engil Mexico is focusing in upscaling and enlarging the portfolio to industrial construction and energy segments, where the recent contract signed after June, with Pemex to design and build a new fertilizer plant, is just the first evidence of the right path on the strategy being implemented. We can see here now in the slide 24, that we are soon to complete the sale of two road concessions in Mexico, with impact, of course, in the second half of 2024, following the green light for the Competition Authority obtained in August. That will allow to obtain these results in line with the expected multiples, and in this sense, confirming the existing hidden value in the road concessions business in Mexico.
Moving to the environment in slide 26, the turnover, as we mentioned before, is growing 4%, as also the EBITDA, with a stable margin of 21%. This segment shows the positive trend of growth, compensating the business sold of recycling of used oils that was in the transaction with Urbaser. Meanwhile, it is important finally to mention that the company is studying several opportunities, mainly in Africa, and also a waste-to- energy contract in Macau, with another new opportunity that we are studying to develop the waste- to- energy technology here in Portugal, and using a new business unit to manage the energy activities under a single global energy unit, as I mentioned.
For last, in slide 28, and looking to the contribution from Mota-Engil Capital and Mota-Engil Next, these companies achieved EUR 63 million in turnover, with a 7% EBITDA margin, reflecting the stable contribution from these segments. Important to highlight the sale of 9% stake from Mota-Engil to Serena Industrial Partners, putting the shareholders in line with 51% to Mota-Engil, 49% with Serena, with this last transaction being made with an implied book value multiple of 1.45x , and this, within this sense, generating added value for the group. To conclude, I will pass the floor to Mr. Carlos Mota Santos to make the final remarks and guidance.
Thank you, Pedro. Looking to the slide number 30, and looking for the months to come and the years to come until 2026 and beyond, we can see that in Europe, strategically speaking, and I'm talking about Portugal, the relevant public investments are going to be under our radar. As you know, we are the sole bidder for the first stretch of the high-speed train. The high-speed project has announced several tenders, some of them in concessions, like the one that we just bid and one that has been launched, the second one that has already been launched, and that the bid is to be presented in the first trimester of 2025. We are very aimed to be successful in that tender as well.
But as you know, it's been recently announced that the high-speed train will be even bigger in terms of expansion, being foreseen a new bridge over Tagus River, with the extensions of the high-speed railway to the south corridor in order to connect to Spain, to the Madrid corridor, alongside with the decision of the location of the new airport. So we can expect for the years to come here in Portugal, a very big growth in terms of public infrastructure and public investments. And of course, Mota-Engil will be a key player in this, investment wave, not only as a contractor, but also acting as a concessionaire and as an investor. Looking to Africa, we continue to have a very interesting growth perspectives in, our major markets, Nigeria and Angola.
In Nigeria, hopefully in the next months. We can have some commercial news of new projects to be tendered, but also in Angola, in some major infrastructure, namely road infrastructure and rail infrastructures, alongside with a new PPP or a new PPP tender that we just submitted for the privatization of the Luanda Airport, and privatization and operation. Also like to stress that we are looking into new opportunities in the industrial sector, namely on contract mining, on energy sector, also in Africa, and I'll also like to stress that our operation in Lobito Corridor just started.
So during the first half of the year, we started the operations, and we are already exporting minerals coming out from DRC through Lobito Corridor and moving out of the country through Lobito terminal into Lobito port. We are making several investments according with the time schedule of the concession, and we can expect to have higher performance coming from the concession exploration in the months to come, due to the investments that are being made, not only in the railway, but also through the acquisitions of new rolling stock. Looking to Latin America, it's important to stress the big wave of investments that can be expected from Mexico, from the nearshoring opportunities. We've already been awarded a new project that is a fertilizer plant to Pemex, $1.2 billion.
That was announced after the end of the first half of the year, so it's not included in the backlog that we are presenting. But also, like to stress the investment opportunities that exist in Brazil, that we are pursuing some major projects, and also in Peru, in which we hope to continue to have a very significant activity with interesting levels of profitability. Concerning concessions, environment, and energy, and starting by the energy, as was Pedro mentioned a little while ago, we are creating a new division in order to take better chance of the opportunities that arise coming out of our environmental concessions. Waste- to- energy opportunities, we are looking to new ways of waste- to- energy.
I can tell you that one of the trends that we are looking into is the biomethane, and concerning environment, we are looking into new opportunities outside of Portugal, pursuing what was one of the bases of the transaction that we did with Urbaser, and also, of course, here in Portugal, continuing to pursue the investment plan and the goals that Portugal need to comply with in terms of the diminishing of landfill depositions and the increase of recycling and also the generation of energy. In terms of concessions, I would like to stress that the fact that we have a new partner for Lineas was a keystone achievement in our strategy.
Now we have a partner that not only is looking to our current assets, namely Lusoponte and Norte Interior, but also looking to other opportunities. This is the partner that already is with us in the award of the new Lisboa Oriental Hospital, that we hope that start construction during the second half of this year. But also it's through Lineas and through these new partnerships that we are tendering for the new projects in the high-speed train, and also that we are going to tender for the new hospital that is going to be launched in Algarve, probably by the beginning of next year.
Our focus is on our core markets, in our core business, and also exploring new opportunities in order to diversify our portfolio of business, as I explained, through concessions and through the opportunities that can arise in some energy opportunities, I mean, waste-to-energy division. Moving to the last slide, and just to give you a quick guidance for what is expected until the end of the year. Our turnover will be paving the way to reach the targets that we publicly announced last year when we did the revision of the strategic plan. Paving the way to reach a EUR 6 billion turnover by the end of 2026. We have a record backlog, but more important than that backlog is the quality of the backlog, like I explained a little while ago.
We are going to continue to prioritize not only the profitability, but the cash flow generation, to control the levels of debt, and to continue to strengthen the capital structure of our balance sheets with the positive evolution that we are going to present in the end of the year of the financial autonomy ratio, and to continue to control the CapEx that we can expect to have a ratio of CapEx over sales below 10%. All this within our core markets and also keeping our policy of asset rotation, and we expect to materialize to fulfill the transaction of the two concessions in Mexico that were mentioned a little while ago, alongside with the transaction of the Polish operations.
Thank you for your attention, and we are now available to answer some of your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. As a reminder, if you wish to ask the question, please press star followed by five on your telephone keypad. And our first question comes from the line of Enrique Parrondo from JB Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for the presentation, for taking my questions. I have three, if I may. First one, I was wondering if you could give us more color on the drivers behind the positive working capital evolution in the first half, as it's typically seasonal outflow, so is it related to an increase in prepayments? Any color would be helpful, and also on expectations for the second half. Secondly, with regards to the sale of the 9% stake in Lineas to Serena, you announced today, just want to confirm that the transaction price is close to EUR 17 million , according to information shared. And when can we expect the closing to take place? And what's your strategy within this concession and Serena and going forward?
Finally, you were recently awarded the contract with Pemex that you noted in the presentation that construction works are worth close to $1.2 billion. We're just wondering if you could share with us some color regarding its funding, so expected equity contributions and timing for this would be helpful. Thank you very much.
Enrique, thank you. Carlos speaking. Thank you for all your questions. Answering, I would say the one that is easier to answer is the second one of Serena. So the 9%, I confirm to you that was with the value of EUR 17 million, and that the cashing was already made. So this was a transaction that was after the transaction that Serena made with Novo Banco, and that we decided in order to have a common strategy for the future, to sell 9% of our stake. And now, as I explained, we have a partner, not only for the managing these assets, but also towards the new opportunities that will happen here in Portugal. But it's not exclusive for Portugal.
We can expect to look into other opportunities, namely in other European markets, concerning concessions. Concerning the first questions that you asked of what was the evolution of the equity during the first half, sorry, the evolution of the working capital during the first half of the year, José Carlos will answer that question, okay? José Carlos.
Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. This is José Carlos. Regarding the first question, Enrique, and the working capital evolution, it's important to remind again, for us all to be at the same page, that we've been established since a couple of years ago, a very, I would say, disciplined strategy regarding our risk mitigation. And that started with our receivables and always having our contracts protected in terms of giving the clients the capacity to pay us back, typically, on the contracts regarding the sovereign clients, because the clients always adding the X on the EPC contracts and closing, always achieving or reaching a financial close before we start each and every contract.
And this has gave us the opportunity to improve a lot the working capital that we've been doing since the last couple of years. What happened this year was the same. It's true that with this increase in our activity, it was expected that our working capital evolution would come from, not only from the clients, but as well from the suppliers. The thing is that our collectible cycle, our receivable cycle, has been improved a lot. And along with that, we've been able and typically and namely with our suppliers, strategic suppliers, with which we've been trying to, I would say, align their supplies with the normal cycle of the business.
Regarding the industrial engineering sector and typically that suppliers, we've been able to, I would say, to get more aligned conditions with the evolution of the contract. As Pedro was saying, and especially in Africa, we've been awarded with four important contracts by the end of 2023. In 2024, we are still on the ramp-up phase of that contracts, having all-- doing the CapEx and all the movements to start the contract. We've been able to establish, I would say, some better conditions with these suppliers that allowed us to, on top of having better collectibles from our clients, to improve as well the conditions to be more aligned with the starting of those contracts.
This created this cash generation in this first semester. Regarding the first part of your question, what's the trend for the year- end? I would say that even with an increase in our activity that we predict that's going to happen, there's no reason for us to expect any negative evolution since we still are convinced that we will go into control the working capital as well, because of, namely, the collections cycle that we've been able to improve since a couple of years ago.
Enrique, I hope that José Carlos clarified the first question. Concerning the third question, your last question about the project that we have recently announced in Mexico of the fertilizer plant. This is a project that has three different phases. One, the first phase is an engineering phase that will last for six months, half a year, and during that phase, we have a contract to design the infrastructure. Then subsequently, we'll have a new phase that is the construction of the infrastructure. That is the overall investment of EUR 1.12 million that we announced. That is going to be an EPC, and that will last for 3 years. And then we have a final phase, a final stage that will last for 20 years.
That is the operation of the infrastructure. The infrastructure was going to be operated by us. The infrastructure aims to produce ammonia, fertilizers, of course, and also AdBlue. We have the secure of the buying coming out from Pemex. So Pemex will have the... We have the guarantee, and Pemex will have the duty to buy us the our production. We are talking about a production equivalent to seven hundred thousand tons per year. And we are going to have this contract along 20 years. Also, to stress that is Pemex, the one that have the responsibility, not only for the buying the final product, but also to deliver the main raw materials, water, gas, and the other raw materials.
This is the first project that we have in this nearshoring, let's say, opportunities towards the increase of capacity of the industrial sector in Mexico, also with the increase of capacity of the energy sector to fulfill the needs of this increase of industrial capacity. And also, it is important to stress that it is the first project that we have with the participation of Duro Felguera. This is basically the materialization or the first materialization of the strategy that we announced one year ago when Mota-Engil Mexico decided to invest in this engineering company coming from Spain. I hope that I clarified your question.
Thank you very much. Yeah, that was helpful. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by five on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Filipe Leite from CaixaBank BPI. Please go ahead.
Hi. Hello, everyone. I have three questions, if I may. First one is actually a clarification on page 13 on your cash flow bridge. If you can clarify what this EUR 45 million outflow that you name as concession, is this equity investment from your side? And if yes, what is the expected equity investment in second half of this year, or your total committed equity in, in those concessions? And also, if you can tell us where are the EUR 17 million cash in that you collected from sale of Lineas in this bridge, if it's in others or in this, concessions line?
Second question on Angola, and if you can elaborate on the reasons for the significant slowdown in terms of revenues in second quarter, - 11%, when in first quarter it was + 6%, and also your expectations for the revenues for-- of the Angolan region this year. Last one is related with Portuguese high speed rail, and specifically the first section, Porto-Oiã, that Carlos mentioned, because as you also mentioned in the release, Mota-Engil Consortium was the only bidder for this project. This mean that project profitability will be probably low, the execution will be high?
... or what were the reasons for the other consortiums and other companies not making any bids for these projects? And also, how do you see the competition for the second stretch? Thank you.
Filipe, thank you. Thank you for your question. For the first question, explaining the doubts that you have in slide 13, I'll pass to José Carlos, and I'll answer the question that we have concerning Angola, Africa, and also the one from the Porto high-speed train. So José Carlos.
Thank you, Filipe. Regarding the concessions, the EUR 45 million that we have in our slide number three, thirteen, it's regarding the investments that we've made in the pool of concessions, namely Aspal, CMRIO and United that we invested in the first half of 2023. This is before we disconsolidated this concessions by the end of the semester as part of our strategy that we've been shared with first generate, then disconsolidate or share the capital and then rotate. So this was the amount still invested in this first semester. Regarding Lineas, we can see it in the, it's in the other column, that effect.
So, Filipe, I hope that clarifies the question that you had, this financial question. Concerning the second question, I believe that that's the decrease is not of Angola, but of Africa. And why the decrease year-on-year? Basically, because last year we had a very strong execution of several projects in the first half of the year. So we had a very strong performance in terms of execution in 2023, namely on the second quarter of 2023. And also this year, we have some delays in some projects that were reflected in the decrease overall in the first half of 3% in Africa.
But we expect to have a growth by the end of the year when compared with last year in terms of of the execution and in terms of turnover, Africa. And also for the next years, based on the amount of the backlog that we have in Africa, as you know, is the biggest backlog that we have. And based on the main projects that we were mentioning a little while ago, and also the main markets, namely Angola and Nigeria, we expect to have a very interesting growth in terms of turnover for next years in Africa. So we are very confident not only to recover the decrease year-on-year of the first half, but also for the next years to come.
Concerning the last question that we have you had about high-speed train, I cannot, frankly, I cannot answer why the other consortiums didn't present an offer. But I can say to you that it was very demanding. The value of the first stretch was very demanding. Publicly I already emphasized that, and I think the government decided to increase the value for the second stretch was the realization that the value was very, very low for this first stretch. Nevertheless, as you know, our consortium was formed already two years or almost two years ago, and from the very beginning, we started to work on value engineering.
Concerning the design alternatives to the design and the tender that we submitted, the value and the engineering solution and design solution that we submitted was the product of these almost two years of work. We invested a lot in alternative solutions, in alternative solutions in terms of design. We have a very interesting alternative design with a lot of synergies, a lot of savings of the solutions that we presented. And also, we expect that we can not only perform this solution, but we expect to have interesting margin, interesting profitability if we are to be awarded this first stretch.
Also, I would like to stress to you that what we did for the first stretch, Porto, we are already doing for the second stretch, Oiã. So we are working not since the publication of the tender, but also before that, because we see this as a holistic approach towards all the projects. And of course, that we feel that we are going to be much more competitive than the rest because we are working for quite some time in the design. And also, if we are awarded the first stretch, we are going to have competitive advantage, namely competitive advantage of resources that are going to be allocated to the construction of the project.
I'm expecting for the second stretch a lot of competition, namely competition coming from the Spanish companies, and also that competition will happen because the value of the infrastructure on the tender was increased recently by the government. So it's going to be easier for companies that don't invest as much as we invest in design solutions, like we did in the first stretch of high-speed train. I hope that I clarified your questions, Filipe.
Yes, if I may, just a follow-up on-
Of course.
On cash flow, which is on page 13, because if I understood, so on others, if we exclude Lineas, we will reach a EUR 40 million, roughly EUR 40 million negative outflow. Can you tell us the reason for this outflow?
Yes. This is regarding Duro Felguera investment. As you know, there was that capital increase, so this is the effect of now having Mota-Engil having that stake of 28%.
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Thank you, Filipe.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press Star followed by five on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions from the conference call at this time, so I hand back to the management team.
I would like to thank you all for attending, and, of course, myself, my team, and all the board will be available to your questions, after this call. Thank you for your presence once again.