Good morning to you, 1 and all. Thank you for taking part in this presentation of our 2020 for your results. You should be seeing the slides in real time on your screens. And of course, you can also find them posted Full presentation posted on our site. We'll be using that throughout our presentation.
Christian Laberie is at my side. The 2 of us will be doing this together. We're at the Headquarters in Houri, Malmaison, I'm with Christian Labery. In front of me, I have the Executive Committee from VINCI, particularly the business line managers who will be able to field questions later that you may have. Now first, a few slides to begin with.
First of all, duration of the very large number of solidarity actions that we've been rolling out since the beginning of the health crisis. Here you can see this. This is a food truck Distributing free hot meals to Lorie drivers, we know that at one time Lorie drivers are no longer able to access the restaurants on the sides of our motorways, the rest areas. These are very popular and we got a lot of very positive messages from them, many thank yous voiced by these slower drivers that really felt that we were doing something for them. Next slide, this is just goes to show that our infrastructure, particularly our airports were and still are in the front lines to provide transportation of essential goods, medical equipment And now vaccines, these were the first deliveries of vaccines we're seeing at the Belgrade Airport in Serbia.
The next slide here, It's an artist's rendition of the motorway section D4 in the Czech Czech Republic, this is an operation which will be the 1st motorway PPP in the Czech Republic. We are the preferred bidder there. The Czech parliament should be deciding today on final grant, final award, then we'll be able to sign probably next Friday. This is a wonderful success. Next, a picture which is an illustration of VINCI Energies acquisition a few months ago of a company called EWE Offshore Services and Solutions.
They were a service provider in project development, engineering and also Maintenance management of offshore wind farms, their expertise is very sophisticated. Firstly, regarding offshore operations, furthermore, electro technology, particularly transformer, High voltage electricity transformer stations, which make it possible to bring electricity to land. Next, a very interesting I think I'd like to bring up the experiment we're doing with Elektra Ron, a company. The idea is to experiment with systems For induction charging via road lanes, it's a very short section right now, about 10 meters. If it works, this can be experimented on longer stretches and then possibly rolled out to specific sections of motorways such as logistics areas or port facilities, I.
E, anywhere where it's necessary to help light vehicles and Lories do not have to be weighed down by batteries, they can get recharging while they're driving using induction technology, makes it possible to do contactless wireless charging. You may have this in your cell phones already. You just place your cell phone on a pad and it can be charged wirelessly without to necessarily have to plug it into something. Next, We have an artist's rendition. This is a beautiful contract of roadways and about 20 bridges in Australia Around and toward the Sydney Airport, €900,000,000 to be done as a joint venture fifty-fifty with our partner, John Holland.
Lastly, we have a picture here, an artist rendition also of VINCI Immobilier, what it's developing right now for the athletes' village, this is for the 2024 Olympic Games. It's a facility being set up in a brownfield, 6.4 hectares is its size. We can say that the idea is to provide this the Olympic Games 2020, about 6,000 beds for the athletes at 33,000 square meters of service areas and other areas during the games. Afterwards, this will all be restructured, reconfigured after the games are over with, so that we can be producing Office areas, store space as well as apartments and a new car a new neighborhood with a very strong attention being paid to environmental considerations here, impact on the environment as well as using bio sourced materials. So that was just to wet our appetites, talk about our projects.
Let's talk now about 2020. As you know, We were very hard hit by the health crisis. It impacted all of our divisions, every single one of them, but you already know, I realize this, The intensity varied quite a bit from one business line to another and also from one geography to another. Starting in mid March, Business impact was almost immediate and very large scale. Our number one priority very clearly was to protect Our employees, I do believe we were fairly good approaching them.
We did achieve this. On that point, it gives the opportunity to really pay tribute to all of our employees, their sense of responsibility, the quality of social dialogue without which Our achievements wouldn't have been possible to weather this crisis. Motorway traffic plummeted by 80 And during the 1st lockdown, passenger traffic in our airports fell to basically 0. Works activities reacted quite differently from one geography to another, things halted almost completely in France for at least 6 weeks at the worksite. However, activities were almost normal in several other countries, specifically Germany.
In addition, there was a phenomenon that has already impacted our Property development activities, a lot of government administrations, almost all government administrations were closed, especially the government offices that are in charge of granting work permits in the various administrative areas. Then as of May, we resumed our business on our worksites. They're now operating almost completely normally. Motorway traffic starting after the first lockdown well as airport traffic began ticking up gradually, recovering gradually, reaching a peak Midway through the summertime, regarding motorway traffic, this peak was very near usual traffic levels we'd had in 2020 at the same time of the year. Unfortunately, everything started going in other direction after the several waves, subsequent waves of the pandemic and a lacking coordination among the various countries, particularly European countries regarding restrictions on movement and quarantine measures.
For all these We've seen a significant drop by 10% in our annual revenue versus the previous year and a 62% drop in our net earnings by €142,000,000,000 Now, three points. Order intake was good, very good. In fact, the order book is at a record level, EUR 40 €2,400,000,000 Next, we have to also observe, and this is really quite extraordinary, the resilience of activity and operating income from VINCI Energies. This really makes us feel comfortable with our stepped up strategy to develop these business areas. Lastly, the excellent situation of our free cash flow, very near its record level of 2019, which necessarily mathematically means the reduction by €3,700,000,000 in our net debt over the annual period.
This is all thanks to very stringent and strict management of both OpEx and CapEx. Furthermore, thanks to a lot of cash in from clients, particularly also our government clients and especially I'd mentioned in most recent weeks and the last weeks of the year, cash in from clients. We saw a strong improvement in free cash flow for VINCI Contracting plus VINCI Immobilier to the tune of up €1,500,000,000 broadly enabling us to offset the deterioration in concessions free cash flow, which was down €1,800,000,000 due to the significant drops in traffic, which I already alluded to and we'll come back to the point in a moment. The way this is Slide 13 now. The way the countries reacted to the crisis, well, we can see this very well depicted on Page 13.
France, We see a drop of 13%, the rest of Europe, Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe saw a drop broadly of around 7%. South America went down substantially as well. However, on the other hand, North America sees an upturn. Africa, right now, things are more uncertain there. Another point I'd like to observe, Contracting business done outside of France reaped the benefits of these differentials between France and outside of France.
So outside of France business was 53% for contracting 53% versus 50% contracting business outside of France in 2019. Now let's move into further detail broken down by specific business areas. VINCI Autoroutes, you remember, got a very good start of the year up until 17 March. It was up 4.8% growth in traffic for VINCI Autoroutes. Traffic then plummeted by 87% for light vehicles and dropped only, so to speak, by 36% for heavy vehicles, which turned out to be more resilient.
These are the figures after the 1st lockdown, then there was a reduction, gradual resumption in traffic. As I mentioned, traffic reached almost normal levels compared to previous years in Q3 in July before then weakening once again in the last quarter of the year due to renewed restrictions and curfews as well as other measures of that ilk. So all in all, we've finished the year at 23.8% drop in light vehicle traffic And heavy vehicle traffic held up much better. It was only down 6.5% for the year. Nevertheless, there's a great deal of good news.
First of all, light vehicle Traffic is just waiting with bated breath to resume, so to speak. We saw it when restrictions were lifted in summertime, it picked up quickly. Furthermore, heavy vehicle traffic, as I mentioned, supported very much by the fact the economy resisted quite well. Furthermore, there's been exponential increases in e commerce. Next, we are public service providers and as such, we've performed very well ensuring faultless continuity of service.
Furthermore, we've shown very clear Adaptability to the very strict health rules, our employees have been fully on board and committed, da Vinci Autorout. Throughout VINCI, I would like to use the opportunity once again to thank each and every one of our employees. VINCI Autorout We'll have continued to be one of the main project owners for France when it comes to public works, €757,000,000 to €750,000,000 invested in '20 specifically continuation of work on the western bypass of Strasbourg, which will be delivered in the 3rd last quarter, sorry, of 2021. Last point and most importantly, this crisis has confirmed that roads broadly, not just motorways, but All the roads network is the vital network for our country. I'm sure you know 9 trips out of 10 and 3 trips commutes to work out of 4 are done by the road.
The knock on effect is that we feel that France can only comply with the Paris Accords if very quickly we can decarbonate road traffic as we're trying to do specifically in our motorway network. We'll come back to the point during your questions. If you're interested, VINCI Airports, The advantage is that this is sort of a leading indicator of the crisis. We have airports located in Cambodia as well as Japan. SAVINCI Airports was better prepared than others, thanks to that, for the almost shutdown of air traffic starting in mid March.
Next, what we saw was a slow uptick in air traffic, mainly domestic traffic, then Schengen traffic starting in June And then as in motorways, there was a plummet again in Q4 due to renewed restrictions. However, Some glimmers of hope in other geographies, such as toward the end of the year, the Americas, Japan and Brazil. These are geographies where you have a large proportion of domestic air traffic due to the fact these are large countries and the distances that must be flown. 3 things I'd point out, First of all, a great deal of work has been done on OpEx and reducing CapEx during the second half of the year and in terms of refinancing set up, particularly for Gatwick and Lyon, all of these quick actions have made it possible for and also to ensure resilience liquidity, overall resilience of this business activity, which as you well know will take time to get back up to pre COVID levels. The second point we'd observe, we continued since the beginning of the crisis, the most strategic works at Sionakfield in Cambodia and Belgrade, in Serbia, Itami, Japan and Santiago de Chile.
We also in France as soon as we could, which means even before the end of the lockdown in France, we resumed work on the Wren and Toulon runways, which were some of the first VINCI Construction worksites to resume business in the springtime. Lastly, our glimmer of hope, the rebound in domestic traffic in China. You saw this in the newspapers. It maybe a little less true today, but a few weeks back, domestic air traffic in China had actually gone above the previous year's level. On a second example, the Dominican Republic in our business there, we've seen that air traffic very quickly started looking good again as soon as restrictions were lifted.
The point being, in our opinion, very clearly, there people have a strong desire to travel and we're going to see this evidenced in our networks after the health crisis. Now concessions development, 2 beautiful Examples of success that show the momentum in our development of concessions and our ability to pull together display synergy between sessions and contracting business lines. First of all, I'd allude to signing of the first motorway PPP in Kenya, which will be generating approximately €900,000,000 worth of works at VINCI Construction Businesses. Furthermore, we've been designed preferred bidder For the first Czech Republic's PPP, I already alluded to it, this should be signed and closed in all likelihood next Friday, a week's time, after getting the go ahead from the Parliament today. The work in the Czech Republic will be conducted, among others, by Eurovia.
In that country, it owns a very strong subsidiary, which has already proven itself in a previous PPP in Slovakia, neighboring country to the Czech Republic, as you well know. Now to talk to you about contract D'VINCI Energies, to begin with, I told you already exceptional resilience at D'VINCI Energies. They especially did a good job of things in Europe as well as North America and also reached full levels of activity in France in the second half of the year. VINCI Energies, in spite of the crisis, was able to continue moving forward with its strategy of acquiring businesses, particularly getting a significant foothold in Canada, specifically in Quebec, bringing into the fold Transilec Com Inc. With around €200,000,000 revenues per annum.
This is expertise focusing mainly in construction as well as maintenance of electricity grids in Quebec. Another highlight you'll see on the slide here, International Business at VINCI Energies now representing 57% of its total, which is very much in sync with the strategy we've had in force for several years now. I'd use this opportunity, we're talking about energy. I'd like to say to you regarding ACSIS, The process is underway. I have nothing to add and I will not add anything further on that even if there are questions.
The important thing is whether or not this pans out, we very much intend to continue developing our energy assets and activities, particularly in renewable energy. On to Eurovia, beautiful reactiveness, Responsiveness for Riovia to adapt to the crisis and prepare for recovery. Like in other contracting businesses, a much more significant drop in France than in most other countries. Some of the countries such as United States, United Kingdom, Chile, the Czech Republic have even seen growth versus the previous year, including if you cancel out currency effects. Order intake at Eurovia suffered in France, well, no negative phenomenon post elections.
But the good news is Order book started looking better in Q4, which is why all in all, not the only explanation, but all in all, made it possible for us to have an end of the year order book, which is up compared to the previous year. Briefly, I'd like to mention to you, since we're talking about Eurovia, which is led by Pierre Angel Bras. He now is in charge of Rovia and VINCI Construction, both of them together. So it's possible to develop even further synergies and complementarity between these business areas to better respond to customer expectations and also to rise to the major challenges of the environment, energy and digital. I'm mentioning him because henceforth, We will be communicating not in terms of contracting, which include VINCI Energia, Eurovia and construction, but rather, Will will talk firstly about the new VINCI Construction division, which consolidated previous VINCI Construction plus Eurovia.
And then on the other hand, there'll be VINCI Energy, as I've already said, which will be stepping up its So this is the last time we're disclosing figures with this business line segmentation that we'd been accustomed to previously for a fair few years already. I'd like to move on to construction now, where we used to term it. Situation is quite a mix here as well, around minus 15% like for like in France, whereas internationally, they maintained their activity. We reorganized fairly large scale reorganization of Entrepose Contracting A few years ago, when Entre Post Contacting was suffering from a significant drop in investments made by major oil and gas companies, Initially, we thought that was cyclical, temporary, but now we've understood for a while now that it was structural. So it was time to restructure Entrepro's contracting, which we basically split up into portions that came into subsidiaries in Africa, for instance, and also many of them many other portions became part of the major projects division Grand Projet.
There's a synergy effect here. We saw this clearly very recently when we won an LNG tank, liquefied natural gas tank in the U. Reservoir in the U. K, I think it was Great Island and you probably know that This is the kind of thing, these LNG tanks, these are some of our one of our specialties. We've made about 20 of these in recent years.
The most recent were in Siberia as well as Canada. A very important thing to Observe and take away from Itchy Concession in spite of the crisis, we can say that we had a particularly large number of large Major projects, I'll just mention 3, there are many more, maybe 4. First of all, the major Paris Express project, we often talk about this. I won't comment on it again. We've got a big portion of it in terms of market share there.
Next, an extraordinary project. These are N1 and N2 secondtions of the HS2 High Speed Line in the U. K. Around €6,000,000,000 which we will be doing as a joint venture with our partner Balfour Beatty. Several batches of the Rail Link, City Rail Link in Auckland, New Zealand, around €500,000,000 here, also a joint venture.
Then there's another contract around €750,000,000 This is to refurbish a tunnel, Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine. As its name would have it, it's in Quebec. It's also a joint venture, Von Vinci's side. It includes VINCI Construction and Eurovia, which is to say this is the new VINCI Construction that I just described for you a moment ago. All in all, at VINCI Construction, 14% increase in order intake for fiscal 2020 versus the previous financial year.
Let's think about this in terms of the new VINCI construction that I've just defined for you. This new VINCI construction begins its history with an order book of 30 €2,500,000,000 very comfortable and activity, which is achieved 50% within France, 50% outside of France. So here is well, we can say this is very much on trajectory toward our internationalization, which we decided on a few years ago. Now lastly, on property development, real estate development started the year very, very well in terms of residential development, creating dwellings as well as corporate real estate development. Then for 4 fold shock, 1st of all, shutdown of the worksites.
Next, quasi absence of reservations during the lockdown and also during the following weeks thirdly, the negative effect of municipal elections and then lastly, the wait and see attitude of Property Investors, particularly corporate property, sales was hard hit, but then sales resumed in Q4, especially but not only, thanks to block sales that were made to large real estate companies such as the housing portion of the Castel depot Consignation. Thanks to this was possible for the full year to contain the drop in reservations for new housing to 16% versus the previous year's achievements. Lastly, you saw this in our press release. Very recently, we acquired the remainder of capital held by the company called Yerbat. This is a strategic move.
Now we can position ourselves even better in the area of affordable housing. On this point, Just it's just an anecdote, the figures aren't very high, but I'd mention something. We have real estate Development activity with a local Max Lucaux in Monaco, there was a freeze in all reservations for Testimony 2, operation underway. So we didn't reserve 1 single piece of housing to a 60 for sale. This is very high end housing and very high priced housing, Not one single reservation in 2020.
Since the beginning of 2021 though, we already have seen 3 reservations for these and a 4th one, which is in the pipeline. So just to give you an idea, this is yet another sign that things are beginning to recover and head in the right direction. I suggest we now hand the floor to Christian Labery. I'll come back as is my customer to talk to you later about the future.
Good morning to you all. So I'll begin as per usual by word on revenue that declined by 10% full year with a steeper Drop in concessions and in contracting concessions, revenues down 32%, impacted by Global movement restrictions have considerably impacted airport traffic, of course, to a lesser extent, motorway traffic. And contracting, The drop was, after all, limited at 5% after a Q2 sharply down, particularly in France, Owing to 1st lockdown when construction sites were stopped, business returned to levels close to normal as of June. And in H2, contracting revenue remained broadly stable as compared to H2 2019, plus 2% VINCI Energia, minus 2% for Eurovia, minus 1% for VC, whereas Concessions revenue was down compared 2019, the same proportions in H1H2, minus 31%, all in all, constant scope and currency. The drop comes in at minus 11%, of which minus 33% for Concessions, minus 6% for Contracting.
Scope effects cover contracting, Recent acquisitions of V, about 20 in 2020, most significant TCI in Canada in October. These acquisition 2020 brought in additional revenue close on €300,000,000 added to an equivalent amount for acquisitions in 2019 full year. Concessions, We had the upside of the full year integration of Gatwick. 2020 consolidated in the group's accounts 2019, All in all scope effects, not that significant, but there was a depreciation of the euro versus The U. S, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand dollars, the impact of the crisis was stronger in France and International, In fact, twice as high in international.
In contracting, in spite of the health crisis, activity outside France was Maintain close to capacity in most countries where we're present differences by zone. And at the end of the day, the share of revenue Site France grows to 47% as against 45% 2019 and contracting almost 53% as against 50% in 20 'nineteen. Turning now to the results. Okay. Business drop heavily impacted our profitability across the Royal business, owing the possibility of adjusting.
Unable to adjust roll time out cost, EBIT, company's consolidated overall stands at €2,900,000,000 almost halved versus 2019, a margin halved coming in at 6.6% as against 11.9%. Particularly marked drop in concessions, motorways, especially airports, in spite of traffic, experts were not able to reduce their costs With the significant drop in their revenue, their cost base essentially fixed. Contracting divisions see their contributions decline owing to the undercoverage of overheads, labor and materials during the shutdown in the second half in France in spite of partial measures put in place across division. Learning from their experience of past crises, Contracting was agile to adapt rapidly to the situation. Both EBIT and contracting margins grew in the second half of twenty twenty as against 2019 overall.
Margin contraction is limited in contracting, minus 30 bps at VINCI Energies, 5.7 percent of revenues against 6 at Eurovia, 70 bps, 3.5% is against 4% in 2019. For VC, a marked fall 100 and 70 bps or 1% is against 2.7% in 2019 owing to the difficulties. Several end of construction sites in France, under Performance and productivity losses are more marked in this business because it's more difficult to put in place protection measures. Difficulty of Oil and Gas Entrepotze impacted 2020 results, but that business was fully revamped and that restructuring is now completed. Performance of VINCI Real Estate sharply down due, as Xavier said, the stoppage of new work sites during the lockdown.
Let me remind you, the production of sites is crucial to of sites is crucial to real estate and also the lag in sales. And in Commercial Real Estate sales were postponed because of the wait and see attitude of investors. And lessees, next slide. The income statement, we can mention here reduction of the expense of share based payments. VINCI, an exceptional Bonus was paid at the end of 2019 to all employees in France at the end of 2019.
Companies consolidated at equity a loss this year whereas normally its income minus 108 is against plus €260,000,000 due to our minority holdings in airports, be it ADB, Cancai or Chile. And in non recurring items, there's similar expenses last year, but items that are more significant in size For impairment of close on €100,000,000 on the one side, restructuring costs also for some €100,000,000 In Construction Entrepus, in particular, Gatwick and positive income linked to the scope change, integrating the de Consolidation of ADP. Financial income, broadly flat, which is a good achievement because the cost of debt is down and allowed us to offset the impact of the acquisition of Gatwick full year because last year, we only had 6 or 7 months So financial expense on Gatwick, sharp drop obviously of the tax expense. Income dropped halved, ditto for the tax expense. Minority interests Of the associates in loss making subsidiary, Century Airport, 1,000,000,000,241 2 earnings low compared to what you were used to in 2019, but we can consider as commendable and better than anticipated given the upset Caused by the pandemic and most of our operations, we tried to quantify the impact of COVID.
It's not a totally scientific exercise. I wanted To compare with the budgets that we drew up pre COVID, we estimate that the impact on the income of COVID was about 2 point €4,000,000,000 So we would have been above the 2019 number excluding COVID. Unfortunately, COVID Struck, which strengthens the indications that we gave you about a year ago now. Next, cash flow. It's the good news indeed.
The very good piece of news 2020 is, as you have noted, financial analysts in your paces this morning, in spite of those difficulties, we generated cash on the year 2020 at a remarkable level. And the assessment on screen shows you the mechanics. EBITDA down By €26,000,000,000 from €8,500,000,000 to €5,900,000,000 But this EBITDA drop of €2,600,000,000 was almost fully offset by an improvement in WCR and current provisions. WCR played to the tune of €2,300,000,000 We We did last year by barely £400,000,000 which was already a good performance. This year, we really Skyrocketed, reduction in tax paid, a reduction in OpEx, both in contracting and at London Gatwick.
Now the contracting divisions are the major contributors to improving WCR because it's Linked to cash in from clients, extraordinarily high, both in France as well as in other European geographies, Particularly towards the end of the year, some clients right at the end of December paid ahead of time for Certain services that were only due early 'twenty one, not only the sustained activity in H2 was Rapidly invoiced. I said that it was almost the same level of 2019 and cashed in, but long standing receivables were recovered, thanks Very good follow-up work on the ground. Development investment in concessions, Flat versus last year, about €1,100,000,000 It's worth recalling that most of these investments were always underway already underway Pre COVID, we can't stop them in their tracks. I'm thinking the new terminal, the Belgrade Airports and work that was done in Cambodia or the Western bypass of Strasbourg. In terms of Acquisition of new companies, a low amount, €400,000,000 as compared to €8,000,000,000 last year.
Well, obviously, that's the registration that last year we took 50% of Gatwick, which weighed hugely. And this year, acquisitions were relatively limited In terms of amount and concern, essentially VINCI Energies. As regards cash linked to dividend share buybacks, they were sharply down versus 2019 following the stoppage in March 2020 of share buybacks at the early pandemic and Partial payment of the balance of the dividend of €1.25 per share in July in respect of 2019, 60% of that dividend balance was paid in shares. All in all, a debt variation, a lot higher than what we estimated of €3,700,000,000 bringing net debt at the group at the end of the year to €18,000,000,000 Next slide. Looking further out, you see that VINCI has demonstrated on many occasions its ability to weather Crises and difficulties, the toughest, such as the one we're currently experiencing.
Unfortunately, the crisis is not over. Delivering performance more than commendable in terms of cash flow. And so as I said and as Xavier Said the remarkably high level of free cash flow in 2020 on a par with that of 2019 is one of the greatest Causes satisfaction on the financial front. So the balance sheet structure next slide, balance sheet structure remains very Strong with capital 46,000,000,000 down, that's the improved The WCR Shareholders' Equity, €23,000,000,000 nonrecurring items at a very high level. Gross debt close on €28,000,000,000 slightly down versus last year, but we renewed, We reissued loans, more about that in a second, to face our reimbursements and cash, available cash reaching close on €10,000,000,000 That's against 6.8 at the end of 2019.
Next, Let's move to the key items of our financial policy, if I don't get lost in my papers. But never mind, I can do it without my script. We benefited in 2020 exceptional market conditions shortly after the beginning of the lockdown that was in May. The beginning of lockdown was quite difficult, but we didn't turn to the financial markets, waited until things calmed a bit. In May, COFI RUD issued €900,000,000 loan 11 years with a 1% coupon, which was already a very fine performance.
And more recently
in November, VINCI has a In November, VINCI has a an Unoriogul issue of €500,000,000 green bond, issue 0 Coupon, but in fact, given that we issued below par or rather above Par, we have a negative yield. So in fact, we borrowed at negative rates over 8 years. That's a first, never happened before. And for the time being, remains a record, perhaps not global, but at least French for how long, I don't know. But that's the way it is.
On the right, you see the liquidity level, €10,000,000,000 of cash at the end of the year. We, of course, need to add the undrawn credit lines at VINCI to the tune of €8,000,000,000 and T Bill issues for €1,200,000,000 of which €200,000,000 at Gatwick because Gatwick benefits from the T bills guaranteed by the Bank of Payment of dividend. Final slide recalls the rating agencies, the raters, S and P and Moody's Maintain their rating. It wasn't a done deal, if you recall, at the end of H1. They credited us with the resumption of our operations that occurred partly in H2 and awarded us maintained a stable outlook.
You see the cost of debt is slightly down. In fact, it is down more on the euro component of the debt, which accounts for 60% of the total, €28,000,000,000 mentioned earlier. But as I said, we consolidated Gatwick the acquisition costs over a year. So
[SPEAKER CARLOS GOMES DA SILVA:] We're impacted on average
cost by the sterling rate of the Gatwick debt acquisition. In spite of that, our cost of debt is slightly down. Xavier? Thank
you, Christian. First of all, I would like to just give you a few of my thoughts. These are points
I've already made in the past.
No particular Points have already made in the past. No particular order in all of this, but let me just say the following. We've all Understood just how much our colleagues how much we miss our colleagues, we're using our force, energy and creativity to maintain our relationships with our colleagues and all the other stakeholders as well, which is all to say, yes, Of course, remote working will continue apace and develop further, but there'll be some limits. We're convinced that the company will never be able to just to be remote contractual relationships, because the company is 1st and foremost a location where people are together. It's a group of people serving us Strategy, shared dream is especially true in our business lines and I'm absolutely convinced this is equally true In all areas of the economy, next, it's never been more necessary to show our social responsibility in societies that are ever more fragmented, that have never needed as much as currently to reestablish this Social fabric, it's crystal clear that now more than ever before, we have to step up our environmental policy even just because of immediate concerns regarding the health of our fellow citizens.
All of a sudden, We really get a fuller understanding of our health as well as the planet's health and needs. Next point, We have to continue adapting and being agile. We've been very agile during the crisis. We'll continue demonstrating this. And it's 1st and foremost, thanks to our local managers.
We restate our belief that the right decisions are made as close as possible to the ground, to the field. This is a good thing. We've got the right organization for this, highly decentralized, making it possible to be fleet footed, responsive quick acting to crisis as they arise. Now the crisis is a virus in the future as long off in the future as possible, but there'll be another one in the future sometime. A last point on this, new challenges are coming to the fore for all of us.
We as a company and all and we as a country see more and more challenges and these challenges become global challenges. Think of the pandemic, it's very global, think of the planet itself, a global concern, cybersecurity, other types of crisis we can't even imagine today may well happen. All these crises have become global crises. Therefore, all of us will need to change the way we do things, change the way we think about things, our mindset. My point being, highly vertical responses, very top down responses quickly have to give way to faster responses, more agile responses, greater cross cutting cooperation and local cooperation.
Next, to come back to our businesses specifically. First of all, it is Currently impossible to make specific series forecasts pertaining to our concessions business. This is very much too much dependent on how the measures taken to counter the pandemic and restrictive measures that may be taken in a fairly disorderly fashion by the various different countries. You may remember back in September, we had the impression that we might complete VINCI Autoroads year at minus 15% in traffic. In the end, it was down more than that.
Why? Because in the interim, The pandemic developed further and you're familiar with what that led to. You can see this quite well on Slide 32 and then Slide 33. On 32, you can see changes in traffic on VINCI Autoroutes month to month throughout 2020. You can see it was quite a ride, went way down, plummeted way down and then went way back up to a level very similar to the previous year, 2019, and then to plummet yet again in Q4 of the year.
The point here is there's a need for mobility. People have a desire for mobility that remains. As soon as the restrictions are lifted, people will begin traveling again. This will respond quite quickly And da Vinci Autoroutes will see that da Vinci Autoroutes in January, we're in line with the previous So financial year maybe not quite as strong reduction as we've seen throughout 2019. What we thought would be interesting would be to give you at least during this time of crisis and regularly every month, We'll give you our traffic statistics for our concessions businesses and for the first time, We'll be doing this toward mid February.
So I can't give you figures for January traffic now, but you will get it very, very soon. Get those figures very, very soon. The important thing to remember at VINCI Autoroutes is demand is pent up. It's waiting to express itself as soon as the restrictions are lifted because people Need to travel, there's a pent up need, it's very strong. We see it in our geographies and we see it in all geographies where we operate.
VINCI Airports sees Q1 2020, which is Slide 2021, sorry, it's difficult, we see it on Slide 33 minuteus 80%. VINCI Airports will recover More slowly, more gradually during 2021, among other things, As people begin to be vaccinated on a large scale and we start seeing herd immunity and people start to want to travel more, For instance, look at the United Kingdom, it's the European country that's vaccinated the largest number of people. In the U. K, they've already vaccinated over 10,000,000 British citizens, they're targeting very high vaccination levels, maybe 90% of vaccination by next Summertime, which means that just a few months' time in some countries, they'll have very much reached to herd immunity, which means also that Within Europe, we should reach that herd immunity sometime during 2021. Last takeaway point on VINCI Airports, You know that our positioning and we can see this on Slide 33 is 78% VFR, which is visit friends and relatives and tourism.
Only 21% of our traffic is business travel. So we're very much VFR, visit friends in France and tourism. We hope this will help us see a quicker resumption in our Air Force network versus the major international hubs whose business traffic is more significant than is our case. We saw an example of this during the summertime When there's a traffic resumption in France and Portugal and clearly that's the segment of VFR and tourism and it bounced back during the summertime and then went back down due to the increase in the health crisis. So in any event, though it will be better than in 2020, in any event, VINCI Airports, yet again, will see a strong drop in 2021 compared to 2019.
Contracting now, the situation is quite different there. I already said this. Our order book It is at a record high. This is Page 34, especially outside of France. The international accounts portion of our order book is 60% of the total.
In 2021, we should once again see a level of contracting activity very similar to 2019 with an improvement in operating margins for the 3 divisions, so that we may come back to and slightly go beyond for VINCI Construction, the margin levels that we achieved in 2019. If you add up all of this, this will mean that for VINCI overall, we cannot give a reliable forecast. We have to look at a crystal ball to do that and that would be pointless. But we can say, it's clear we're not going to see in 2021 a resumption activity levels and margin levels that we had before the beginning of this health crisis. Now, of course, the group intends to Go further than this, we think in the long term, take a long term view, our project is to prepare ourselves for a recovery in economic activities in all territories where we're major players, both in concessions and contracting.
Our view is We have the possibility of using assets that are very strong assets of ours. First of all, our business model is a long term business model, very much suited to the current challenges, which are long term challenges. We're talking about energy efficiency, the environmental transition, new mobility needs and communication needs. For all these reasons, we've got a strong belief that we're here in all of our business areas. For the long run, we're in buoyant long term markets.
Next, our businesses are highly responsive, react quickly. We saw this during 2020. Thanks to the way we're organized in a very decentralized fashion. Our teams are highly committed, very much engaged, witnessed by our ability in the crisis 2020, the ability to react. Our financial situation is very sound indeed, as Christian Haberri has explained it to you just a few moments ago.
We are therefore confident and with this confidence, the Board of Directors have met yesterday decided to propose to the next Annual General Meeting, which will be held on April 8 and a dividend, which is identical amount of last year, which is EUR 2.04 per share payable, detachable, 20 April and payable, 2021, 20 2 April. Now before I start in Q and A, let me say growth is going to be ever more green. There's no doubt about that whatsoever. We began working this starting in 2019. Very beginning of 2020, before the COVID crisis, we announced our targets and our precise commitments But all of our 217,000 employees are now working on, there are 3 areas of focus: Act for the climate, which means we're addressing our CO2 footprint.
Optimize natural resources, thanks to rolling out the circular economy when possible, which means reusing materials to not have to extract these materials from the planet And then thirdly, biodiversity, preserve natural environments. One last point having to do with our Social and societal responsibility, as we see it, this is very much part and parcel of our environmental responsibility. During a time when society is going under experiencing a trying situation, We've all got to be active in this area of the society as a whole. We're talking about, for instance, Give Me 5 helping youngsters in France or think of other things we do. There are many citizens actions that we began in almost all of our countries since the beginning of the health crisis.
All of these actions and many others in each of our countries are a great illustration of our humanist approach, our inclusive approach in our business, our ability to work for a more inclusive society with more solidarity. I'm emphasizing these initiatives. Why? Because we not only must continue with these, we are going to need to boost these even further. Today, clearly, paying attention to the planet is no longer optional.
The environmental transition, however, will only take place if we also pay greater attention to societal and society considerations. It is our custom to try to put all this into and talk about overall performance, comprehensive performance. You can't just talk about technical or financial performance on one side and the environmental and social performance on No, it's overall comprehensive performance. You can't have any performance at all. You don't have all of such a performance.
That's certainly our belief and that's what brings us forward. That's what our focus is. Our whole purpose, our whole calling, our main deep seated calling is to reconcile all of this to bring together in one movement the will to be useful to people and a concern for the health of our planet. Thank you very much. We'll be happy to field questions.
Christian and I as well as our colleagues from Executive Committee are here to answer your questions now. Thank you.
First question Comes from CIC. Over to you. Can you hear me? Yes. We can hear you.
Well, we're pleased to I'm really pleased. I'm really Sorry not to be with you. I hope things will change. Two questions. The first, Slide 15, VINCI Airport, EUR 140,000,000 EBITDA.
The 4 major airports, Anna, Gatwick, Lyon and Cambodia, are they profitable in EBITDA? Is it possible for you to answer that question without I'm not sure if you answer that question without going into the detail of the figures. And secondly, I'll put it later. I have a question on contract. Yes.
Go for your second question on contracting. The merger between Eurovia and VINCI Construction, is it marketing on cosmetic? Or does it involve A merger process with reduction in holding costs, The result the positive result of VINCI Construction, about €130,000,000 covers recoveries on the 3 major job sites in difficulty these past years. I'll answer the second one, and then we'll so we'll get rid of that. And then I'll let Nicolas answer the first slide.
Nicolas, so on your second question, that is On this new VINCI construction, what was the idea behind this? Well, increasingly, The businesses conducted by Eurovia were had kind of recoveries from VINCI Construction. Let me give you an example. Africa, VINCI Construction has a business that is essentially focused on roads, which is normally Eurovia's business. In the U.
S, Eurovia undertakes projects that are TOACs Well, we're in charge both of the earthworks, construction of straightforward engineering structures is the case and then the Pavement on the road. So Eurovia in the U. S. Is a lot denser, a lot broader than the way in which We see those businesses in France. In the U.
K, Eurovia's business, a very large part made up of work Through long term contracts, almost PPPs that concern all the road, Primary, secondary, tertiary networks within a county in the UK, Ditto in Germany. So Eurovia and Construction Businesses had quite a lot of overlap, and our international expense Made that overlap increasingly frequent. So in fact, when we do In a bypass in Saskatchewan, it's road, but it's also construction. And it was a deal that was won, thanks The local presence in Eurovia and then delivered between Eurovia, VINCI Construction and VINCI Energia a bit. So first point is that this merger, as you say, this tie up makes sense so that we kind of streamline a bit in each geography the way in which we address the various Market segments that I've just referred to.
2nd thing, there are major challenges at VINCI that are, On the one hand, synergies across our various businesses and synergies between contracting and concessions. So what we expect from this new setup is to be even more efficient when it comes to forging synergies between these internal components within VINCI. 3rd point, we have huge challenges ahead of us in construction in terms of Developing our support for the environmental transition by new practices, Innovation, we believe that by working more hand in hand, VINCI Construction year over year will allow us To leverage to the full these new aspects. No major changes in terms of the structures. The only thing Kind of in practical terms is Pierre Angel Horace, as I said, is both the Chairman of Eurovia and the Chairman of VINCI Construction.
And a few weeks ago, he produced a managerial organization, not necessarily legal, But organization, managerial that for the most part brings together these businesses under a single management across various geographies. We expect an improvement in performance through improved synergies and better specialization of the various units in these businesses that tended to overlap A bit more every day. Christian? So EBITDA, We don't give you the details of our EBITDA asset by asset. If you're patient, ANA, Anna is going to be publishing Accounts, you'll see what the situation I can't say anymore.
We very often have partners, so we can't disclose information Without the agreement of our partner, etcetera, there are lenders. So sorry, we can't disclose that type of detailed information. As to the results of Concession, what we if we will say, the actually the sorry, construction, the risk on major worksites in France are very correctly Provisioned at the end of 2020. And we hope to have a return to better fortune, perhaps not in 'twenty one, but in the out years. Very often at VINCI, we're on this We're erring on the safe side in that respect.
So on VINCI I mean, is the entity fully covered or no? Well, it is. Well, the result of 1 which is the sum of all the contributions of VINCI Construction, corresponds to results that are markedly Positive at VCGP, major projects, solitransprechigny, international subsidiaries, negative contribution of Entrepose and VCF. Thanks for
that. Now we're going to get a question from Edith D'Aral from JPMorgan. Go ahead. Yes, hello. Hello, Xavier and Christian.
Hello to everyone. Congratulations on these very good results. I've got 3 questions. First of all, free cash flow performance, which I believe will be the big takeaway point here from these results. You talked about cash in end of 2020 from public authorities that should have come in, in 2021 possibly, should we then see this as a one off point?
I realize you can't give guidance on that for 2021 at this juncture, but Can we possibly think that this amount of free cash flow, as in the past couple of years, would be sustainable? Can we be more confident in this type of guidance for the future? So that's the first question. Secondly, About motorways and possible extensions, you seemed more optimistic about relationship between Motorways and Governments. I got the impression you seem to be a little bit more optimistic.
Do you have any update conceivably on Green CapEx and types of expansions, where things stand in these various negotiations? And then a brief point on airports, I realize you can't give us specific airport reports results I can't guide on 2021 traffic, of course. But could you recall for me sensitivity of airport results to traffic? I think you said 70% traffic levels of 2019 would reach would be in breakeven or something like that, I think. Could you remind us of the orders of magnitude between traffic and overall activity results earnings.
Thank you very much. We'll hear from Christian Labery, Then Mr. Coppay and one other person. Regarding the free cash flow point in time, we'll tell What 2020 22 cash flow is? Caution as caution has it, we have to say, We can't extrapolate this performance and assume for instance 2021 or 2022.
If we were paid in advance at the end of the year, we can't count on that being the case in future years. So we have to do our forecasts and we have to think possibly of EUR 4,000,000,000. Talked about recurring cash flow at VINCI around $3,000,000,000 in the past. It may be somewhere between the 2, but at this juncture, we have no idea. It's It's very early days.
In this year's free cash flow, we've got also the savings effect, savings on CapEx such as Gatwick and also Eurovia contracting and you cannot extrapolate based on this. You have to invest if you want to do these work projects. So this will mean easily EUR 200,000,000 to EUR 300,000,000. If you include all of these different factors, I am not saying necessarily it will be $3,000,000,000 but we can probably be closer maybe closer to $3,000,000,000 than $4,000,000,000 But as I said, it's very, very early days try to do any sort of forecasting. On Motorways, CapEx 2020 around EUR 650,000,000 or EUR 750,000,000.
We kept our investment program, as we said, in spite of the epidemic, talks that had been started in July on a major plan financed by extensions. This was interrupted end of October and now this is in discussions to make smaller scale investments that might be placed in specific contracts for each of the companies and compensated by increased rates, increased more modest increased tariffs for an extension, because the government in the immediate future isn't considering extending length of concessions, probably in conjunction with the Senate report yet to come, which has further complicated dialogue on the matter. We confirm I can confirm what you were saying. Breakeven net earnings around 70% of 20 nineteen's traffic would be breakeven. I'd also add a point.
Savings and OpEx were quite substantial. They are long lasting. They continue. Some of these OpEx Savings will continue in the long term. That's the advantage of very long term concessions.
Now CapEx, down to that one. Above and beyond, major greenfield contractualized operations, which are wrapping up at Santiago to Chile and underway in Belgrade, There will be a big reduction in CapEx in 2021, particularly pertaining to capacity CapEx. Okay. Yes, on that point, I believe you had a slide that showed an increase in CapEx starting in 2023 for airports, among others. I think it was Page 68, talking about a big increase.
We're starting in 2023, but of course, This can be revised as you can well imagine. We've got more certainties for 2021 and 2022. We do have 2 medium term programs, one of them we confirm, which is the one to extend airports in Kansai Kukes, You know that there was an Osaka Fair 2025, it should be operation started in June. Information that we've given you was disclosed in December is that the Japanese government, it hadn't originally been expected, decided to subsidize the tune of 50%, five-0 of this CapEx. This is direct subsidy to this Kansai project with an eye to maintaining the 2020 25 operation.
Now 2022 figures Without any start up right away, we're assuming there'll be extensions in Lisbon 2021, 2022. That explains some of the figures expected starting in 2023, such as the Montijo Lisbon Airport.
Yes, videmans.
Let me say very little CapEx expected for Gatwick 2021, 2022 in the neighborhood of 0. Of course, in our medium term projections, there is Gatwick CapEx in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Thank you to Elodie.
Next question from RBC. Go ahead, please. Yes. So well done for these fine results, notably the cash, A lot of available cash. Can you tell us a bit about your acquisition plans in 20 Give us an update on ACS Airports.
Do you think there are good deals to be Donald, do you what about ADP, the seat on the Board And on contracting, I'm sure you keep the situation as is. Well, answer, we have not changed our strategic line businesses where we wish to invest and to go all out, the same as before the crisis with time lines That are, of course, slightly amended because of this crisis. For airports, I mean, I'm convinced, and I think that's Also the view of Nicolas Nordbar, it's more than likely there won't be very much available on the market in terms of yellowfield deals. Why? Because the current owners of these major airports Quite obviously understand that now is not the time to market them, to go to market because It's take the risk of underselling in terms of valuation as compared to what might be obtained when we have a clearer view on the Traffic outlook, that suits us, I have to admit, because to do long term anticipations to embark over Dozens of year on traffic development charts in the fog in which we are today would be A pretty hazardous indeed, bold exercise.
So short Not much is going to happen as we see it on the airports front. It won't prevent us from continuing to Track a number of opportunities that I won't detail, but I'm talking more about opportunities with low capital, Sums on deals for airports of small and medium size, but big transactions, no, which Leads me to the second part of your question, ADP, Paris Airports. It's more than obvious that the opening up of the Share capital of ADP, that won't happen in the coming months, so the reasons I've just outlined. But also, as you know, In France, we're entering into a pre presidential election phase, which generally doesn't lend itself to this type of project, which as we saw a few months back, can become quite controversial. So nothing much will happen with ADP short term.
On the energy front and businesses. As I've said on many occasions, we plan to grow in an accelerated fashion. This is what VINCI Energies has achieved wonderfully for many years now. Our new focus is today to look more than we did in the past Renewables, not just in terms of design, construction of wind and solar farms, But also to go to market of the invention and development of Renewable Energy Fields and long term with the corresponding assets is one of the strategic dimensions that led us to look at ACSIS. And I said earlier that we would say nothing more than what we said thus far.
Thank you. We have another question from Nabil Ahmed from Barclays. Go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for accepting my question. I'd also like to congratulate you and the good results considering the context, truly impressive. Three questions. First of all, contracting, more specifically, second half margins.
I looked this up in the past. I haven't found as high margins for contracting. You can tell my point. A return to better fortune and so forth. I was wondering why you're guiding on 2021 margins that are similar to 2019?
And should there be a drop compared to the second half of twenty twenty? Another question. Indirectly related to ACS, but not directly, if you allow me to ask the question. In renewables, Does this hinge on acquiring ACS? If ACS doesn't come forward, will you still be interested in that strategic direction?
Last question For Xavier, your CEO term is up next year, I believe. Could you share with us what your view is? Will you take the following term? Is there a succession plan? Conceivably.
Thank you. But give me that last question, it's easy. Easy way to the easy thing about it is because I won't say anything to you. This is obviously wholly and only up to the Board of Directors, particularly the Lead Director and the Appointments Committee. We have ongoing talks about this.
Let me also say that the COVID crisis has to be factored into this. In other words, the group was really thrown into some upheaval. We have to include that aspect to make sure there's not a transition that might be made more difficult around 2022. But that's the only thing I'll say. Regarding Renewable Energy, I've already said this in the past.
Yes, We do intend to be a player, including a capital player in The area of renewable energy, why wasn't this the case previously? Up until fairly recently, About a year or 2 ago, before COVID, our view was available capital to invest and develop was pretty well sized to meet the ambitions that we had, I. E, to grow in airports and to grow in motorways And lastly, no order of significance, to grow in contracting with a special focus on energy, we felt Opening up a new area of investment with a long time frame would possibly risk our ability to develop in the subject areas where we were already established. Now, especially due to the crisis, that rationale, which was true a year and a half or 2 years ago, clearly is no longer true. Therefore, now, we're available to invest money in Renewable Energies.
Our view is we have many of the qualities that are prerequisites for this to develop something from scratch, activities in renewable energy. Well, doing it from scratch means having to have a local establishment fully understand regulations, desires of local populations, desires of politicians and so forth. And we're in a very good position for this Due to our network, which covers over 100 countries, we're very comfortable when we're to develop from scratch renewable activities. For example, in Africa, we have long standing significant positions there. Next, We've got an ability we've already clearly demonstrated.
We're very good and quick at doing legal and financial establishment of these deals, these are very similar to concession type programs as we've had previously. Clearly, it's easy for us. If we're talking about engineering plus construction, that's part of what we do. And then maintenance is something we also already do in many different areas. Therefore, We're very, very comfortable in each and every one of the segments along the value chain.
We just need you to decide to move in this direction. There are 2 ways of doing this. Either We do it by ourselves from scratch, reorganizing ourselves so that we can tackle these subjects or we can do this through various acquisitions enabling us to step up our presence in this segment. This is one of the reasons for the ACSIS project. So to answer your question, yes, we very much intend for ACIS to happen, so we can quickly roll out in energy areas.
We've already demonstrated this very clearly. Furthermore, We are investing in this subject of renewable energies. Chris Jones, regarding margins in the second half, It's still early days. We can extrapolate it too. The first half was excellent, especially for VINCI Energy and Eurovia.
The end of the year was quite something beyond what we could have hoped. It doesn't mean that you can extrapolate nothing exceptional we need to mention there. VINCI Construction, It's also the case for several divisions that had very good second half, such as Fredericense Fresenet as well as major projects, Grand Roger, Not VCF though, we feel that they should be able to do better. And we have to recall the following, Entrepose was loss making in 2019. Now in the second half, they've broken even.
So that also helped contribute to the good results in construction second half. But to begin extrapolating is way too early, can't do that. We can dream, of course, but we won't commit to that at this juncture.
Next
question, ODDO BHS, you have the floor. Yes. Just to return to your comments, Javier, about the Need that you see to decarbonate roads. Obviously, it won't go via a motorway Stimulus plan, at least in France, what other form might it take? How can public authorities get to grips with this one And launches type of projects.
So there are already discussions underway. Still on France, could you give us a brief update on the situation of Municipalities, local authorities and the order book for 'twenty one. I think I saw in your release that T4 We're showing some early shoots of recovery. Is that an underlying trend or just a one shot? And then I have a slightly more technical question on taxes in France.
Could you give us an update On the 'twenty one changes, I mean, decrease in the tax rate but also measures Regarding on indirect taxes, what the impact can be for VINCI? Well, Pierre will answer the first question. Pierre Jean Georgas, very much involved with municipalities, local government will take the second. On decarbonating roads, well, the idea starts from some simple facts. Transport represents 30% of green gases.
Road represents 80% of travel and 3 out of 4 commuter runs happen by car. So decarbonating rods probably means devising a master plan for rolling out decarbonated The energies on the road network, that's something that doesn't exist today and doesn't follow The pace of acceleration of the rollout of electric vehicles in France, it means developing infrastructure to Increase the use of road. Road is not a means of transport. It's an infrastructure that Receive means of transportation that can be diversified by Developing must buses, multimodal means developing carpooling, car Sharing, fluidity between these various modes, all these issues require an overarching plan. And we clearly sense that all the players, not just professionals, are rallying and are beginning to discuss this with the public authorities.
Hi. For municipalities, local authorities in France, the good news, their financial situation is sound. That's reassuring. We've seen notably this year with the lag in municipal elections, obviously, a slowdown that Continued, and we're beginning to see at the end of 2020 the beneficial effects because the Governance teams at local levels in the towns and cities are now in place, and we're seeing the positive effect of that. 3rd point, It's clear that And that is as it should be by the COVID crisis and short term crises that are diverting their attention from more long term Investments and at the same time, that's a positive point to pick up on what Pierre Coppe said about the road or other infrastructure.
We all sense that midterm, There is a need to invest and to address a number of issues, be it what we're seeing. We all see this In major cities such as Paris, cycle lanes, so the beginnings of a transformation in transport infrastructure and urban development. So clearly, there's a capacity for financial investment with the Stimulus plan in France, €200,000,000,000 to be raised by local authorities and we said great store by it. It's urgent That it be deployed as of now as we see in France in many countries where we operate such as Germany, U. K.
Or Canada. On taxes, we can't tell you everything. We're allowed to keep A few secrets up. Our CVAE in France is a tax that's proportional to revenue. We don't know By definition, what our 'twenty one revenue will be notably that of VINCI Autoroute.
So that The 50% reduction, if it's confirmed, that would represent a saving of a few dozen €1,000,000 net income I mean, the tax rate, we don't know what the earnings of VINCI Autoroutes will be into 'twenty one. It's difficult to project. We're not talking 3 digit, a few dozen €1,000,000 for the impact of the tax saving that would result from the drop in the tax rate, 31% or rather nudging 32% will drop to 27, 28, a few dozen €1,000,000 in tax savings for companies in 'twenty one. But we need to be very prudent. What counts is the tax base Before paying less tax, we'd rather pay more tax with more earnings than paying less tax with less earnings, if you follow me.
That's the Comment of L'aberry, the philosopher, Doctor. Villard and philosopher L'aberry. Thank you. We have a Question, the English side, Kepler Surbhi, you have the floor, sir.
Maurice Breitov from Kepler. I have 3 brief questions, if I may. The first one is coming back for a moment to the working capital And the earlier payments than expected. I just wanted to know whether any sort of economic incentive has been given economic or terms incentive has been given to the I just wanted to understand a bit more how you managed to accelerate on the ground. The second question would be Regarding toll road opportunities worldwide, obviously, high complexity toll roads are, I understand, of interest company like many of the other peers.
So I would like to know your view on the front and particularly in the context of the current concerns about congestion levels being impacted By factors like work from home, you made reference to work from home levels that we're interested in before. And finally, in renewables, I understand that you're probably not going to be able to help me here. I just wanted to have an idea of what could be a theoretical size of a portfolio Renewables within your activity portfolio? And what geography would be targeted? Thank you.
I'll answer that in French. WCR, Chris Jean will come in on that or repeat what I said actually. Now on motorways, your question covered several aspects. My understanding was Initially, you're asking about sophisticated technologies can be used to improve flow through existing infrastructures. And in addition, you also talked about remote working.
And I would like to come in on both of those points. First of all, regarding greater sophistication of managing existing motorway sections To make better use of these with better flow, we are already highly involved in these business areas because you may not know, but We are the first to have established in California, in Orange County, a system. For setting dynamic tolling, the target here specifically is to make it possible for people who are in a hurry and accept to take lanes that are faster flowing lanes versus people who aren't in quite as much a hurry and they can stay on the other lanes in that section that are a little bit more congested. So dynamic tolling, dynamic payment is highly developed in the United States. And we were one of the first, not necessarily the first, but one of the first to implement this.
I'd go so far as to say, we have a company called ETC, I think it is, which is a specialist they've developed in the U. S. In that niche. They also recently won, along with us, a contract in Ireland. We present them with this technology in other bids as well more and more.
Remote working, working from home, if I asked Pierre Coppet, but I'll say it in his stead, We would say this, if we look at our French motorway network, the proportion of our customers who Our driving on the motorway as a commute from home to work is fairly small, 5% approximately, about 5% to commute, which is to say, even if in the likelihood that there is more and more remote work, As I said earlier, remote working in the future will not represent all of a sudden 50% of all business activities, this simply can't happen, it's not possible. But even in that assumption, the impact on traffic at VINCI Autoroutes would be very much manageable because it would be fairly minimal on renewables. That's not our rationale, not our way of thinking. We don't set targets in terms of portfolio, why? Because if you set that kind of objective, that could well be the strategy of some of the major players in energy.
But it would presuppose buying at fairly high prices, existing portfolios, that's not what we do. Our type of doing things is sometimes sub existing assets, but more times than not to leverage our We network of establishments worldwide, our into an understanding of how things are done locally to then ourselves develop various products. What we're saying therefore is that it would be wonderful if within the next few years we were to be able to develop, let's say, 1 gigawatt of renewable energy per year to begin with, that'd be pretty good. Here we stand at 0 right now, because we're just design and build and or maintenance. But in terms of developing assets, E and R assets, for the long term, our objective initially would be to try to develop ourselves approximately 1 gigawatt renewable energy per annum, but we have comparison people like Neon, that are doing well today, are at a level of that similar order of magnitude.
People like Total I have their sights set much higher, but that's because they've got the wherewithal to invest massively in existing fleets. On WCR Christian, it's not the way we do to pay customers for them to pay us quicker. We're pleased to pay our suppliers in a timely fashion. I don't know if you remember we had a campaign in the second half on the subject. We are very careful to be beyond reproach in this area and our subsidiaries as well.
I'd remind you in France, Elsewhere in Europe, I believe, you can to pay, you can take minimum 60 days. Sometimes that wasn't complied with by certain clients, especially some government clients. I assume instructions were handed down In 2020, due to COVID, probably even more so toward the end of the year, just to make sure that they comply everyone, including Some government payers would comply with those regulations, MAX-sixty. It probably wasn't for reasons of ill will, but just maybe lacking organization. This is also the case in other European countries, including countries where payment times had tended to extend more and more over time.
Thank you. We have another question from Gregor from UBS. Over to you.
Hi, good morning. Couple of questions. I just come back to the working capital. To be clear, you were kind of talking about maybe it will be cash, I think, for this year. That was quite right.
I guess the question I appreciate the inflow will not be repeated, but do you think there's a risk of an unwind? In other words, that some of the $2,300,000,000 or so Actually flows out, say, over the 1 or 2 year. I appreciate it's difficult, but just to give us some sense. The second question is, can you just give us kind of a big picture overview of any sort of major tenders coming up in construction or Tracking. Is there anything we should be watching, be it in Grand Paris or elsewhere in terms of larger projects that you're Working on.
The third question is, so you spend a lot of time on renewables. I think another area was maybe the U. S. And managed planes or sort of Road concessions in the U. S.
Can you give us an update what you're thinking there is? I think you've hired somebody there and I guess there's some things coming onto the block, I believe. So whether you're keen to get involved on that side as well. Thank you.
On big projects, Pierre Jean Francois will correct if mistaken, but let me just say that you'll have noticed our order book Is it a record level, record height? And it comprises large several large Deals, one of them I didn't mention, which is starting up, Fremen Link, this is the Link Undersea Link, which is no longer 9 years down the road, Link of Denmark and Germany, It's a project for our consortium is about EUR 3,500,000,000 in revenue. Technically, it's quite complex from a technical point of view. So let's just say, we're not lacking projects. My feeling is it will stay this way.
In other words, the world is full of projects. There are so many projects out there. The difficulty isn't to find major projects. The difficulty is to target those large projects where we can provide an added value and also in turn extract value, I. E, projects that are in line with our way of carrying things out, especially with a big dose of engineering so we can optimize the projects.
So the issue isn't to race after any old project that might be out there, we have to carefully select them. Worldwide, you have a very large number of projects out there. I'm convinced there are going to be more of them. In geographies like the United States, that's obvious. The new administration will have to very assertively tackle the underlying problems in the United States, I.
E, the very mediocre state of their infrastructure. So we'll see an increased investment going on in the U. S. On infrastructure. Our position in that country, of course, and in North America more generally will enable us to be selective as we are so that we can win tenders.
More generally, I believe one of the responses to the COVID crisis is going to be among others is going to be to relaunch some projects in some geographies, because often this is an effective way to leverage things to boost the economy, to get it to bounce back after crisis. That's the point of major projects. And Pierre Andre de Vos will correct if I was mistaken in any way. Now To come in on the point, Christian, free cash flow, let me talk about this. In 2020, Half, almost half of the $4,000,000,000 was generated in December.
So, VINCI is like a toy company when the toys sell. So it's impossible to do forecasting 1 year ahead about what cash flow generation is going to be in December. Usually, it was around €1,000,000,000 that was the case for quite some time. This year, we doubled December's cash flow. I don't think we extrapolate on this, but you never know.
At this stage though, I cannot do any kind of forecasting though. Xavier, regarding Managed Lanes, I'd suggest Nicolas answer that one. He is the one who managed to attract to us, bring to us a highly talented woman, Bedein Marcos, who understands the subject very well. Yes. To comment on the previous question as well as this one.
First of all, ITC, things are happening in Texas right now after California. It's developing very well also. Last week, we did the go live of the proof of concept of a toll technology to contracts near Austin, Texas. This is proof of confidence in leadership because it's a highly competitive place and we're very proud to have won these contracts in Texas after California. The President of Sintra, Belen Marcos came on board to us.
She has a great knowledge of this market. She was located in Texas. Managed lanes, there are many parameters involved. First of all, the amount of CapEx, we said this earlier, this and together with Pierre Jean Lavas, of course, depending on the amount of works, the type of works and depending on the American state where the projects are located. We've got an ability with partners or not to be involved in big CapEx operations.
Next, the tolling technology, clearly, we have this. We also have the ability to take traffic risk and with the equity. So work throughout the U. S. And Canada, if there are opportunities, there are fewer, any and all opportunities in the marketplace, both brownfield and also greenfield.
To consider the type of work, consider the U. S. State involved, consider the various parameters And with Belen Marques and da Vinci Construction teams, we will review these.
Thank you. One final question from Santander. You have the floor, sir.
Yes. Good morning. I have a couple of And why the word stimulus plan has been removed from your outlook statement? I believe this was something you alluded to up to the Q3. And I was wondering if this reflects that you don't believe this can be a tailwind, Particularly from 2021 awards, or if you just believe there could be delays to the various stimulus plans?
And secondly, in airports, Could you tell us if ANSI Airports could be eligible for economic relief packages in any of its concessions, be it concession extensions or reductions in concession fees in any of the most important airports.
I'll let Nicolas Nodtbar talk about airports. I'll repeat what Pierre Coppess said earlier about the motorway stimulus plans. Pierre Coppess said earlier, Yes, there was an opening broadly when the new Prime Minister came into office, Jean Castex. There was an opening. So we met a great deal many times with the Transport Ministry to craft an ambitious plan, which would be compensated by extending the life and of concessions.
We hoped we'd begin to do things in this area, but you'll remember, I was the first to say it's not just because we're having talks that they will come to fruition. What happened is what we'd feared. The discussions, the talks were halted. Pierre Coppay mentioned it might have been to some degree because of a new Fairly critical report, very over the top report issued by a Senate committee regarding motorways. And France has become accustomed to this type of report in the past 10 years.
Now more broadly regarding country stimulus plans, the stimulus plans are ambitious, particularly in France, they're very green, which is a very good thing that's going to involve us. But as often, They're very sophisticated in the way they're crafted, but they're not very responsive and quick to implement, which is to say we don't yet have the initial beneficial effects of these stimulus plans, which will in the end involve us, but so far it's not the case. Personally, I'm pushing for the pandemic. We've seen the pandemic in the second and third waves and I'm pushing saying that it would be beneficial to consider additional additions to stimulus plans from last summer, supplements to tackle housing, which was the big aspect forgotten about in the first the stimulus plan in France. Next, we need to change mindset.
We need to change where we do things and really bring this down to the local, the municipality. This municipality, that's crucial. They are the ones that know where the spending needs to take place, that they know how to spend quickly. As Pierre Gentilez said earlier, Municipalities need to have the resources and be given incentives to develop CapEx. There are the needs in the municipalities.
They exist. You just need to motivate them, boost them and give them the funding and the incentives to trigger the movement so that the local municipalities can really move toward local investments, which, of course, we are very interested in. Regarding Nicolas' subject, he'll come in on this. Nicolas, We have very different types of contracts in terms of timing and ways and means for airports. Right now, we're in a contractual dialogue everywhere on the ways and means of taking into account the economic situation at airports.
At this juncture, We've actually obtained hard cash through compensations in Brazil, Sao Paulo de la Bahia Airport, full compensation we've received in Brazil. Sanford Orlando also, and I mentioned earlier, the most important amount, CapEx contribution from Japan. This isn't to say that in other countries that the contracts things will be done. As per the ways and means in each contract, we've got ongoing dialogue and there are different possible outcomes. These are underway for the other airport concessions.
Coming to the end of questions on our list, end of questions. Well, if there are no further questions in the Q and A, it remains for us to thank you for Tuning in by hoping, like last time, that we'll be able to meet in the flesh For our H1 results in 'twenty one because we miss you. Take care.