Well, thanks for joining us for this audio conference. You probably found on our website the presentation that will serve as background material to what we have to say. We are here at our head office in Rueil-Malmaison. I'm joined by the major chief executives of the various businesses who will be able to answer your question in due course. Christian Labeyrie, tomorrow he's celebrating his 31 years in the company, and he plans to be the halfway mark in his career with us. On slides 12 and 13, it'll come as no surprise to you, we were heavily hit by this pandemic that impacted, without exception, all our businesses and all our geographies. As we'll see, with varying reactions, depending on the country.
First of all, I'd like, once again, to thank our people, they're many in number, France and abroad, who rallied during the lockdown phases. Clearly, their commitment that allowed us to continue to operate our company. Thank you in particular to our colleagues from motorways, airports, railways, who already ensured in an exemplary manner their public service mission. Thanks to our maintenance and works teams, who ensured that the energy, water, communications networks operated smoothly and also called upon to set up field hospitals and new hospital facilities. My thanks to all those who rallied to organize and implement our numerous solidarity initiatives, actions that were there to support those who are in the front line, but also to assist the most vulnerable people. We have to continue because we've all understood that this crisis will indeed weaken people who were already in a vulnerable situation.
We have always believed at VINCI in the strength of civic engagement, and the wave of exceptional solidarity prompted by this crisis has shown that it is indeed a shared conviction, a conviction that leads to supportive acts of solidarity at every level in the group and first and foremost, on the ground. Turning now to the business. The impact on the business was almost immediate. It was massive. Mid-March, motorway traffic plummeted by 80%. Passenger traffic in our airports were reduced almost to zero, and the works contracting business reacted very differently depending on the country. For example, almost a total halt in France, but business close to normal in Germany, and government departments shut down for the most part in France, and particularly the urban planning departments that staff planning permission requests.
This leads to a difficult first half, revenue down 15%, and EBIT that remains positive but sharply down, and net income posting a loss of EUR 294 million. What is, however, remarkable, and in fact, impressed us very favorably, is the way our working capital held up so well, as well as our free cash flow, which, as you can see on slide 12, 13, leads to a sharp reduction of over EUR 2 billion of our net debt over a year. Our foremost priority at the start of the crisis was to ensure our people and projects were safe. You can't just stop a project at the drop of a hat.
You have to think about shutting down a job site before going ahead with it. We put in place business continuity plans so as to ensure our public service assignments across our various concessions assets ensure an excellent level of liquidity because at the start of the crisis, no one could predict. Today, it's still the case. We see a little clearer than we could back in mid-March.
No one could predict whether the crisis was going to last a long time, very swiftly we began to consider a resumption in activity by drawing up in countries with government departments and the unions guides such as in France, the OPPBTP guide to organize not just the recovery, but it is very important for the future to work under COVID because no one knows when this pandemic is going to disappear naturally or when we will have an effective vaccine. We swiftly reviewed all ways of cutting expenditure, partial activity in France, an equivalent system in many other countries, reduction in temporary personnel, a halt to all spending not strictly necessary, sharp reduction in CapEx and billing and recovery of outstanding receivables. The recovery is there across our businesses, but still very slow in airports.
More about that in a moment, owing to the restrictions put in place by many countries. The way in which countries responded to the crisis is clearly shown on the next slide 14. You see that France is down 23% on the half, whereas the rest of Europe only declined by 4% or 5%. South America and the part of the continent where we're established, that's to say, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Peru, and Colombia, that area of the world is also sharply down. On the other hand, North America continued to grow, and that's the positive impact of contracts signed previously, and notably in 2019 by Eurovia and VINCI Construction. Africa is more uncertain. It went slightly better than in France during the first half. Today, the situation is more challenging. Slide 15, we're beginning now to go a deeper dive.
VINCI Autoroutes got off to a good start to the year. Traffic increase up 4.8% between the 1st of January and the beginning of lockdown in France on the 17th of March. Traffic then collapsed, as I said, decline of 87% light vehicles, 36% for heavy vehicles. Since the end of lockdown, gradual recovery that accelerated when the 100-kilometer constraint was lifted. I'll tell you later where we're at as we speak. At VINCI Airports, we saw the wave coming thanks to our forward vantage points of our airports in Cambodia and Japan because we all saw that the wave came from that direction. Very swiftly, traffic stopped just about everywhere as of mid-March through end of May. Since the end of May, there's a slow recovery in traffic. Firstly, domestic, and then for Europe, the Schengen area as of June.
Big effort at VINCI Airports on spending and CapEx, it didn't prevent us from continuing the most strategic work sites for the future at Sihanoukville in France with the runways at Toulon, Rennes, Belgrade, Serbia, Santiago, where in fact, the construction site never stopped in spite of heavy disruptions locally pre-COVID. Japan, Osaka, where we're inaugurating, of course, remotely on the 5th of August. That's next week. The most important renovation of the historic airport at Osaka Itami, the most important renovation for 50 years. It's important to say because it's a fine sign of trust and confidence in these difficult times. Contracting, good news. Order intake, particularly strong at VINCI Construction with the HS2 line in the U.K. In France, The Link project, which will be the new head office at Total at La Défense, and several contracts for the Grand Paris Express.
Slide 18, very good resilience posted by VINCI Energies that worked particularly well during the half in Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia. All in all, a limited reduction, 4%, and this in spite of more significant declines, -10% in France. Also, declines in the U.S. because we're pretty well established in the New York area. Singapore, where we continue to work, but with slower work rates given COVID issues, notably the housing facilities for a number of migrant workers in Singapore and in Africa. Didn't prevent VINCI Energies to continue to acquire new companies, a dozen of all sizes in the first half for additional revenue full-year of some EUR 200 million.
Slide 19, very good responsiveness by Eurovia to adapt to the crisis and prepare the recovery, which is the case as in other contracting businesses, decline far more significant in France than most of the other countries, with some countries such as the U.S., Germany, or the Czech Republic, that over the half posted a growth over last year. VINCI Construction, Slide 20, ditto. Same contrast, depending on the country, -27% in France, but only -5.5% outside France. Particular difficulties with Entrepose Contracting that's been suffering from a few years now of an oil and gas market, heavily depressed. Things haven't improved, notably after the very sharp fall in the price of oil started a few months ago. VINCI Construction projects are often these as in the construction and whose human density is stronger than at VINCI Energies and Eurovia.
There are more workers and people involved in the same project with multi-activity, many different trades. We had to work long and hard to plan the recovery, rethink our job sites with sometimes staggered working hours to avoid too many people together at one time with one-way flows so that people don't come too close. We had to readapt changing rooms and shower areas so as to comply with social distancing, with very detailed reorganization of each and every workstation. All that to strictly comply with the health regulations and notably social distancing. As I said, we took full advantage of the period to acquire several major projects, those already mentioned. That accounts for the record level of order intake on slide 17 that I showed you, which is obviously most welcome on the eve of the economic phase of this crisis. Slide 21.
Real estate property development got off to a good start to the year, both residential as well as commercial property went through a difficult phase. Work sites halted, almost total absence of booking of residential during the lockdown phase, -48% over the half, but also a freeze on the staffing, a planning permission which will pose a supply problem. That's really a pity because the demand for residential is once again strong. If we look at everything that includes block sales to institutional investors, July bookings to date are up 17% over last year. We're catching up, not fully of course, but partially, the delay that occurred during the lockdown phase when there were no bookings. We must project and accelerate the emergence of new programs so as to have as soon as possible, hopefully the end of the year, a offering to meet the very strong residential demand.
I'm now going to hand over to Christian, as per usual. I'll come back in due course to tell you about the future.
Thank you, Xavier. Looking at slide 23, which shows, as has already been said, that revenue declined in the first half by 15%, with a sharper drop in concessions, down 32%, than in the contracting business, which was down 11%. At constant scope and foreign exchange, the decline in revenue comes out at -17%, of which -37% for concessions and just over 12% in contracting. The scope effect in the concessions reflects the inclusion for the first half as a whole of the revenue from Gatwick, which was included in the financial statements in May 2019. In contracting, the new entries concern acquisitions by VINCI Energies, mainly in Europe, as well as VINCI Construction in excavation. The scope changes account for additional revenue of approximately EUR 600 million for the first half.
Regarding currency variation, this was only minor because while the euro fell versus specific currencies such as the dollar, in fact, it was up versus other European countries as well as Latin American currencies and the Australian and New Zealand dollar. Slide 24 shows that the decline in first half revenue was far sharper in France, almost -23%, than for the international business, down 5% at constant scope and -10% like on like. This reflects the complete standstill of most of our business in France for a month from the beginning of lockdown on 17th of March, and therefore, as Xavier has pointed out, revenue outside of France in the first half accounts for 49% of total revenue versus 44% for the first half of 2019.
This 49% will probably decline somewhat in the second half and for the year as a whole, because the second half will show that business in France is almost back to normal, apart from our airport business. As Xavier has underlined, the decline in revenue in the first half had a major impact on the profitability of all of our business because we were unable to adjust in real time our cost to reflect the decline in business. This is particularly true for the business in concessions, motorways and airports, where costs are, for the most part, fixed costs. However, the contracting business also suffered from a major decline in their contribution due to the fact that it was impossible to cover all the structural costs, personnel and equipment.
EBIT was down by EUR 2 billion for the first half, but is still positive thanks to the contribution from VINCI Autoroutes and VINCI Energies, as you can see from the slide. Of course, the COVID impact was emphasized by seasonal factors, therefore, the margins that you see for the first half do not reflect the margin forecast for the year as a whole. This is particularly true for Eurovia, whose income is mainly generated in the second half of the year. Moving on to slide 26. We are looking at the income statement. A strong decline in the contribution of companies accounted for under the equity method, due mainly to the holdings of VINCI Airports in the Kansai and Aéroports de Paris airports.
A non-recurring net charge of almost EUR 120 million, reflecting depreciation of goodwill as well as tangible and intangible assets, and a restructuring charge in our oil and gas business. The financial result is virtually stable. On the one hand, the cost of debt to the group has declined, thereby offsetting to a large extent the impact of the consolidation of Gatwick Airport for the whole of the first half, and also a strong decline in our tax charge, reflecting the decline in net income. A positive contribution of minority interest reflecting our share from partners in our shares in some consolidated subsidiaries, and also a net loss of EUR 294 million versus a net profit of EUR 1.36 billion in the first half of 2019. Slide 27. The situation is more encouraging than for the income statement.
Free cash flow, which measures the group's performance in terms of cash generation for the period under review, is down by a mere EUR 500 million versus the first half of 2019, which is due to, first of all, EBITDA of EUR 1.8 billion, down 50% on last year, and a variation in working capital requirements and current provisions of almost EUR 500 million. Whereas it was negative to the tune of almost EUR 1.4 billion in the first half of 2019. Lockdown, in this regard, had a positive impact, because while disbursements were limited due to the low level of activity, customer payments were significant due to a strong start to the year, and also to the collection of long-standing receivables, where a major effort was made.
Payments for tax and interest expense were up due to the adjustment versus the entries for, that we had a leftover from the CICE government subsidy. Operating CapEx was more or less stable. Part of the investment had already been launched before COVID, therefore could not be stopped abruptly. This item includes investment underway for the construction of the new head office of VINCI at Nanterre, which has been ramped up since early 2019. Finally, investment for London Gatwick included for the whole of the first half as opposed to 2019. Investment in concessions are slightly up on 2019. This involves investments launched by VINCI Autoroutes, such as the Strasbourg bypass, and VINCI Airports, mainly in Cambodia, Serbia, and Portugal.
Regarding acquisitions, there were very few acquisitions in the first half of 2020, approximately EUR 100 million, involving approximately 12 companies that have been mentioned previously by VINCI Energies, mainly in Europe. Regarding cash disbursement for dividends and share buybacks, this was very limited compared to 2019, further to the downward revision of the amount of the remaining dividend payment for 2019 and its postponement to July, most of which was paid out in new shares. Financial debt came out at EUR 22.1 billion at June 30 versus a moderate rise of EUR 400 million for the first half and down by over EUR 2 billion compared to June 30, 2019. Moving on to the balance sheet. Notwithstanding exceptional difficulties encountered in the first half, the balance sheet of VINCI remained extremely strong, particularly looking at the past 12 months.
Capital employed down EUR 1.7 billion, mainly due to the improvements in WCR. Shareholder equity, excluding minority interest, is stable. Non-current provisions are up by EUR 200 million, financial debt is down by EUR 2.2 billion. Slide 29. We redeemed loans maturing for a total of EUR 1.6 billion, a bond issue of EUR 700 million issued by VINCI SF in 2012 with a 3.4% coupon redeemed in March, and a bond issue of EUR 650 million issued by ASF in 2010 with a coupon of 4.1% and was redeemed in April. In May, with appropriate market conditions, we were able to issue a new bond issue for Cofiroute for EUR 950 million maturing May through 2031 with a coupon of 1% only. This issue continues to the favorable debt schedule. You will see this in the annexes.
It has an average maturity of eight years. You will note that we do not have to redeem in any one given year more than EUR 2.5 billion, which is very reasonable given our cash flow. Average cost of our debt comes out at 2.3% for the first half versus 2.4% for 2019 as a whole at 30th of June. It was less than that. We did not have the impact of Gatwick at that time. We have seen during the crisis that the rating of VINCI is very well regarded by investors.
Our long-term credit ratings are A minus with S&P and A3 with Moody's, have both been confirmed with a stable outlook reflecting the strength of our concessionaire construct model, our diversification in terms of businesses and geographies, and the prudence of our financial management. As we repeat regularly at these meetings, we place great importance on liquidity, meaning our ability to very rapidly raise significant amounts of cash. First of all, in order to meet our commitments, namely, redemption of our loans and issues maturing. Next, in order to be able to exploit acquisition opportunities which are part of our strategy, and also in order to be able to deal with a contingency situation such as the financial crisis of 2008, which led to the credit markets drying up for companies over several months.
The extraordinary situation that we have faced this year validates the relevance of our policy, which some may feel is a little bit too conservative at times. Against this backdrop, as soon as lockdown began, we sought to consolidate our liquidity because we were entering uncharted waters. At VINCI, we were among the first beneficiaries of the reopening of the commercial paper market, thanks to the support of the ECB and Bank of France. In parallel, we were able to obtain from our longstanding banks, additional credit facilities with a one-year maturity for EUR 3.3 billion. Finally, as I have just said, through Cofiroute, we issued a EUR 950 million bond issue maturing 11 years.
After these various transactions, we had at end June, a cash buffer of EUR 18 billion, breaking down into EUR 5.8 billion of cash, commercial paper, EUR 1.2 billion credits, facilities, EUR 11.3 billion, of which EUR 8 billion maturing November 2024. The good news is that, contrary to our expectation, operating cash remained very strong throughout the period, meaning that our debt level at 30th June is barely above that of end 2019, whereas usually in mid-year, it is significantly lower, compared to end year due to the seasonal nature of our business. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Christian. Before talking to you about the future at VINCI, I'd like briefly just to share with you a few thoughts, stemming from this period of consideration that we've all experienced. First of all, we've all seen how much our colleagues were sorely needed and missed, and to what extent we derive our strength, our energy, our creativity through interaction with others, our colleagues, of course, but also all our stakeholders. If I mention that, of course, the underlying trends on the rise, such as home working will expand, but let's not think it's a revolution because the company can never be reduced to a mere set of distant contractual ties. A company is first and foremost where a collective comes to the fore serving an objective, a strategy, and a shared dream.
All that to say that it's not the end of office and real estate projects in general. It's never been more necessary to affirm our social and civic responsibility in highly fragmented societies who, more than ever, need to strengthen the social fabric. It's really part of our culture. We're already doing a lot, and we'll probably have to take this to the next level going forward. It's even more necessary to accelerate our environmental policy because the immediate concerns affecting the health of our fellow citizens all of a sudden place in starker focus the worries about the health of our planet. More about that in due course.
The ability to adapt that we've displayed, to halt, to ensure the safety of our job sites, to ensure our public service missions, to revise our spending, our structures, our investments, to resume our job sites is really down to the credit of our local leaders. We reaffirm our conviction that is part of our culture, is that the right decisions are taken close to the ground, first and foremost, and we have decided on the right organization, highly decentralized, offering the best adjustments, agile and responsively to the inevitable crises that will loom on our way. Other lesson learned, we know how to work under COVID. The firmness guides that I mentioned earlier that were viewed as site resumption guidelines. We use them as guidelines to work under COVID.
It's very important because we don't know if we won't see the emergence of new clusters, so we consider that we're well-armed, well-equipped, so as to meet a resurgence of such hotspots from the epidemic. New challenges arise for companies as well as countries. They're increasingly global challenges, the challenge affecting the state of the planet. We've understood the very global challenge posed by the pandemic. There may be others tomorrow, big issues revolving around cybersecurity or others that don't appear today. These global challenges must lead us to a change in mindset. By that, I mean that the top-down process, the responses must give place to swiftness, agility, horizontal and local cooperation, logics based on partnership and trust.
To illustrate these principles, if we consider the recovery plans that are launched here and there, the good news is that these recovery plans are all very green, focusing on the environmental transition. I think that the implementation of these recovery plans should factor in the principles I've just mentioned in a country such as France. Urgency dictates that we inject far more swiftly, investment capacity for local government because it's on that level that we can take account of realities on the ground. Turning to our businesses, now slide 32, French motorways are picking up faster than expected traffic levels in July, and certain days have seen a return to growth even over last year. The full month of June up until June week 30 is at - 2% over last year. That's obviously good news.
It reminds us that we will not make up for the absence of traffic during the previous phase, but traffic decline full year 2020 should be between 15%-20% over 2019. We believe also as part of the recovery plan announced by the State, motorways might be mobilized by extending concessions so as to invest in transport decarbonization by accelerating the rollout of electrical charging points and hydrogen demonstrators, or through intermodal infrastructure development, with high service bus routes or a free-flow toll system. Concessionaires can also offer investments in peri-urban networks that could form part of the decentralization announced by the Prime Minister of the National Road Network, either for the regions or the département. VINCI Airports, slides 33, 34. Things are slower.
VINCI Airports is recovering more slowly owing to border restrictions and uncertainties brought about by the emergence of clusters, such as very recently in Barcelona that led a number of U.K. citizens to give up their holiday plans in Spain. That is a major tourist destination for them as it is for other European countries. Starting from almost zero in terms of passenger traffic, we were at - 83% during week 30, that is to say last week. We expect, and this is illustrated by the two pie charts you see on slide 33, our positioning should allow us to resume activity faster than others because we are at three quarters of VFR, visiting friends and relatives, and tourism, minus one quarter on the professional travel segment that will be slower to pick up than the other two segments.
The other pie chart on the left where you see that our customer base is 50% domestic and intra-European, which should also favor us in the long haul or the long-distance segment, accounting for only 10% of point-to-point travel in our various airports. We expect the end of the year will see a traffic drop of the order of 65%. 2021 will once again be down versus 2019, quite possibly, at least we hope, with a traffic level that will bring us close to break even in terms of net income on that business. It's in this business, quite naturally, that we reviewed downwards significantly our CapEx as illustrated on slide 34. In contracting, as was said, we're off to a good recovery close to normal, particularly in France.
What's striking is that France, that was almost at a standstill during the lockdown phase, is now pretty much the geography that's the closest to a return to normal. It's also the case for Germany, but Germany declined far less than France. The good news is obviously our order book, as you can see on slide 36, at an historic high, EUR 42.9 billion. That's excellent news, even if it does conceal the weakness of small and medium-sized projects. It will all depend on the speed at which the various recovery plans across countries will be implemented. We hope that'll be as swift as possible. We expect contracting to record in 2020 a drop of 5%-10% over the previous year. VINCI Energies probably at the low end of the range, and VINCI Construction probably towards the top end of the range. Eurovia being somewhere between the two.
That inevitably there'll be a reduction of our EBIT margins across the year, probably limited to 150, 200 basis points of the EBIT margin over last year. 2020 won't be a good year. We're expecting that to be the case for some months. In these quite exceptional circumstances, the board that met yesterday decided not to pay an interim dividend because of a negative result recorded during the first half. This in no way prejudges what we'll decide in early 2021 in respect of full year 2020. What is important is to look to the future. We are rallying to support the economic recovery in communities where we're a key player, both in concessions and contracting.
We believe that we have significant assets to bounce back as of 2020, depending on how health conditions evolve, so as to return as soon as possible to sustainable growth, partly. We have a long-term business model well adapted to current challenges, energy efficiency, new mobility or communications requirements. As already mentioned, concessions and PPPs in the broad sense are very effective levers for recovery that are available to public authorities. We are on promising markets across our businesses for the long term and the high responsiveness of our company, thanks to our highly decentralized structure. Quite extraordinary commitment on the part of our teams. An order book at an all-time high and a very robust financial situation allows us to remain confident. We can only do a good job when we're confident.
2021 will be the year of the rebound, and we see this far more clearly in the coming months.
Growth will be increasingly green, as we have seen in the various stimulus plans, and we are particularly happy to have redesigned our ambitions in terms of in the environment in 2019. We had set ourselves specific goals and commitments, bringing together all of the teams in our group with three main thrusts. Working for climate, optimizing natural resources through the circular economy, and preserving the natural environment. The environmental issue does not only concern the specialist head office, but it concerns all of our 220,000 employees.
We support them by providing training for them to be able to act with the proper level of information and skills. We're mobilizing them by launching in September the Environment Prize, which will enable us to share, enhance, and reward the initiatives of all the components of our businesses in the group. Our vision of performance is a global vision as set out in our manifesto. I would like to say a few words about the social and societal aspects, which we must not forget. We are improving in terms on all of the areas of the manifesto. We're improving on employee safety on our sites. We are improving in terms of diversity with gender parity. We're starting from some way behind, but we're making significant inroads. We are improving regarding our sharing our profits.
This year, of course, is going to be a bit more difficult, but last year, through our various schemes, whether individual or collective, we distributed EUR 470 million, and 100% of our French employees and our shareholders of the group and 90% of our employees around the world are eligible for our share acquisition at very preferential rates. We are improving on the theme of societal responsibility, which is very much part of our group culture. This year, we will be welcoming 5,000 secondary school pupils from inner urban areas for five days. We are working very hard on social integration through work, and we're probably one of the champions of this in France, with the 2,500 people we support every year through these insertion programs. Well, that's what we wanted to say. As you can see, we are optimistic for the years ahead.
We have been convinced for a long time that we must now reason in terms of global performance. In other words, economic performance, of course, but increasingly social, societal, and environmental performance. We made this choice of global performance. This is our raison d'être, to bring together the will to be useful to mankind and to the health of the planet. Thank you very much, and of course, we are already here at the Rueil-Malmaison head office.
With the heads of our business units to respond and answer to all your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, please key zero one on your keyboard. A question from JPMorgan.
Good morning, Xavier. Good morning, Christian. Thank you for taking questions. I have three questions. Number one, on contracting, you feel that margins will be down by 150-200 basis points. Can you give a bit more granularity on the different divisions? I suppose VINCI Construction will be down more. What impact should we expect further to the restructuring of VINCI Highways' contracting? Do you think you will come back to 2019 margins in 2021? If not, what will be the decisions arising from that?
The first question. Question for Christian on working capital requirement with a positive impact in the first half, which is very unusual in seasonal terms.
Should we accept a negative variation of WCR in the second half as the business picks up again? That's my second question. Number three, you talked about the possible extension of motorway concessions in exchange for a carbon in decarbonation investment. How many years of extension would you expect on that basis?
Thank you very much, Elodie. Well, I think I'll give the floor first of all to Christian.
Right. Well, listen. What we think is that there may indeed be a decline in the months ahead of WCR, but we've always got it wrong in a positive way, and that it will be restored by the end of the year.
We don't expect by the end of the year, a worsening of the situation compared to end of June, even it may hit a low in the meantime, but we've usually got it wrong in the positive sense previously. That may well be the case.
For the third question, I will hand over to Pierre Coppey, who will tell us what he can say on this, which is a partnership with the state.
Pierre.
Good morning. Thank you, Xavier. What I think on this is that it's premature to give any figures in our answer to the question. For the major French concessionaires, a lot of work has been done in recent years in decarbonating transport and developing intermodal transport for areas surrounding big cities and for establishing electric recharging stations and establishing a free-flow tolling system in France, and this represents major capital spending.
The state has begun to ask us for proposals which are being examined by the DGITM and the relevant government department. We haven't yet come to putting figures on this, so it's difficult to give you a more detailed answer at this point.
I would add, Elodie, that with the exceptional situation, you need an exceptional answer, and we understand fully that this is such a deep crisis that what we must do, as I tried to explain earlier, is to change our recipe, our method, and move into a partnership based on trust and confidence. In France, with this new government, we see that there is a genuine will, so we'll see what happens. It's too early to forecast results. We do see there is a genuine will to move into this new logic based on partnership and trust.
Regarding the contracting business, I don't want to forestall what may be said, anticipate what may be said by my colleagues, VINCI Energies will probably be at the low end of the bracket. VINCI Construction, perhaps at the high end of the bracket. For 2021, I'd go as far as to say that under present circumstances, that means assuming that we end up having a stabilization of the crisis, then in that case, we should be able in 2021 to go back close to 2019 levels for margins for 2021. Having said that, will my colleagues have any comments on that? Pierre, Jérôme, and Christian, who is extremely optimistic today, has said that it may even be better in construction in terms of EBIT margin in 2021 versus the results in 2019. Do you want to elaborate on that, Christian?
Well, first of all, I can confirm that production on our sites has resumed across all geographies with a production that is more or less at normal levels. We're getting used to this new normal.
Which is working with masks, even though this requires some claims. The data which we closed out, financial statements circulated in June, is rather special. We bore the full brunt of the crisis, and of course, it was too early to take into account all the claims arising from contracts under which these claims are due. We have a major contract which is going to be signed, has been signed, and we have a very strong order book, and this means that we will be able to start off 2021 with a sharp rise in the order book. We've been working for several years, and we will continue to work on emphasizing margin as opposed to revenue, and therefore, to work on the margins on order books, which are increasing steadily. Thank you.
Next question from Royal Bank of Canada.
Hi. My first question concerns the dividend. You say that you can't rule out a payout for the 2020 results. Could you say, if there's no second wave, that you're confident in paying out a dividend? My second question, just to pick up on working capital. Do you see potentially a risk in terms of recovering outstanding receivables and the financial health or soundness of your contracting clients? In terms of cash out disbursements, you're not expecting in the first half to see an acceleration. My third question concerns airports.
Things have stopped in terms of margin. The second half of the year may not be a lot more active than the first half. On the dividend answer, all depends when we have to take a decision of the way in which we view the next year.
If you have a catastrophic mindset, and you imagine that next January, the pandemic will continue to gain ground and the macroeconomic picture will be even bleaker than today, well, it would be legitimate for the board to be cautious when it comes to paying out a dividend so as to preserve our financial firepower. That's pretty unlikely. Our central case is that things will continue to improve, as I said to Elodie earlier. Under that assumption, we don't see any reason why we would not be able to pay out a dividend for 2020, obviously on a par with our earnings full year or a portion of those earnings.
Christian. Two questions on WCR and receivables. Maybe I misspoke on WCR.
We had receivables in this Q2 of the sustained activity level of Q1, higher than usual, favorable weather, and fewer disbursements because our activity was almost at a standstill case in France. It's the opposite now because we're returning to normal in contracting. Cash in will be about two months, but we're resuming disbursements because we're getting subcontractor suppliers to work. That's why I said it's not impossible that our WCR might deteriorate in the coming months between now and the end of the year, because traditionally, the last month of the year is a very busy month for cash in. In the previous months, we should return to a WCR level on a par with what it is today, a bit higher even, if we are lucky. As regards receivables, we've provisions receivable in the first half.
In the release, you see we tried to estimate the COVID impact on our accounts. Part of the impact, pretty modest. It's not three digits, it's nevertheless significant. Accounts, provisions for receivables, impairments, all segments, contracting, and even in airports where we decided to provision certain receivables.
Third question on airports, Nicolas will speak to that. I didn't fully understand the question. Don't hesitate to ask for a repeat. Nicolas.
I'll try and answer what I understood. We had passenger traffic - 61% the first half, highly contrasted between the two quarters. Xavier said all institutes are banking on minus 65 full year. The second half is lower than the first half on average. To go from - 61 to - 65 is lower. As for today, we're at around -8 2. - 84 for July.
It's a slow recovery, necessarily H2 won't be as good as, slightly lower than H1. That's traffic, the impact of OpEx reduction measures progressive will be more significant in H2 and CapEx underway continued, CapEx is far less CapEx necessarily in H2. That's what we can say. A qualitative comparison between the first half for airports, if that could answer your question.
Yeah, that's perfect. Thanks. The only thing I'd like to add as regards airports is temporary unemployment furlough schemes that you applied during the alert phase. I suppose that's going to continue in the second half.
Well, we have a global airport network. As you know, France is about 20 million passengers in 2019, -10%, the 255.
Support measures vary in France, temporary unemployment support schemes, also in the U.K. for Gatwick and Belfast and Japan, some in Portugal, but not necessarily the same across the world. The employment support measures vary considerably depending on the country and over time. Won't stop in France because one of the affected sectors, a number of different schemes probably will continue. We have a global network, and so it doesn't apply in the same way, it doesn't have the same impact across airports depending on the national schemes.
Thanks.
Thank you. Next question from Barclays. Over to you.
Good morning. Thank you for taking questions. Three questions, one on contracting, another one on airports. The first question on contracting, can you help me understand how you factored in the decline in productivity arising from social distancing for an unknown period regarding your order books? Have you booked charges for this, and how do you factor this into the annual contracting margin? Second question on airports, can you give us an idea on what is VINCI's airports approach to retail? Are there negotiations underway? Is this model in the process of changing because they may move towards something that may involve greater sharing of risk between the airports and the retail players?
Last question, can you give me the total amount that was received by VINCI for the first half for furloughing and all the various plant support measures?
Thank you, Nabil. On your first question, again, I'll hand over to my colleagues, but I would start off by saying that the cost of the decline in productivity, which is close to zero at Eurovia and VINCI Energies in the process of normalization of VINCI Construction. Of course, there will always be some expenses because you have to provide masks, sanitizer, pay the crane operator for overtime, this kind of thing. Overall, we're showing that we're able to work under the constraints of COVID, and long-term productivity gains will probably be very limited. Now, I'll start to be corrected, of course, by Jérôme Stubler.
If you don't totally agree with me, please give your opinion, Jérôme. Jérôme Stubler bears out what I'm saying. Arnaud, for VINCI Energies?
Yes, I agree. The only impact concerned the implementation or the establishment of lockdown with some stop-and-go effects, which had a one-off, in fact, and otherwise virtually zero, as you said, Xavier.
On Limag?
No, what I wanted to add is that, of course, contracts that are signed, have been signed since we kicked off the lockdown phase, are contracts, or at least the biggest contracts, include a COVID disclaimer. Well, yes, feel free to elaborate on that, of course. We have two types of contracts that have been signed prior to the COVID crisis with public sector contracts where we have clauses that provide protection.
With compensation provisions. We have private sector contracts where around the world we have force majeure clauses, which enable us to extend deadlines, but which do not always provide financial compensation for contracts which were signed during the COVID crisis. This does not apply because the COVID crisis is an established fact. What we've included are two principles. Either we exclude the impact of COVID, which requires compensation, which is negotiated on a case-by-case basis, depending on the scale and duration of the crisis, which we do not know. Otherwise, it's built into the prices one at a time, the contract is signed. Behind the rest, you have one minute. Just to say that COVID impacts is now behind us now. We now know how to work under the constraints of COVID, as do our clients.
To emphasize what Xavier said, is that if we have new constraints and a new period of lockdown, we now have to deal with this, and our customers also know how to deal with this, and we relied on that. I think that's reassuring if we have, in terms of productivity and additional costs.
Nicolas. Just one comment. That means that excluding the decline in activity in the second half, margins will be similar to margins for the second half of last year.
Not quite, because you don't go immediately from one situation to another. There is an adjustment period, and I think everything that Jérôme said earlier applies.
There's still quite a lot of work to be done vis-à-vis some customers in order to ensure that we have compensation not only for deadlines but also for receivables, in particular regarding the phase that we've just gone through. If you add all this up, it means we have to be a little bit patient, and we have to protect ourselves into 2021 to look forward to a normalization of margins or perhaps margins slightly above 2019. On guaranteed minimums, we don't have a single approach to this. The advantage of our decentralized model is that our local managers implement these contracts. Sometimes we have demands and sometimes we don't. A proportional approach to traffic. We're going ahead with local situations, and sometimes we exchange a long-term value, trading off long term versus short term.
There are different types of contracts and a sector which is impacted, including ourselves. There's no immediate transfer of risk from one player to another. We apply to the contracts, and the clauses apply in some cases. It varies depending on our assets. There's no single approach to this to communicate on this.
Just questions on airports, the long term. Do you think there will be more risk-sharing on airports between retail and airport operators more?
I don't know. The model is based on the sharing of risk. We don't see any great difference in customer behavior, apart from the fact that obviously you have to be very responsive in order for the product that they're being offered be more digital. There's no actual change in the equilibrium, which has to rest on risk-sharing.
No major shift that we can foresee in terms of the sharing of risk. Regarding furlough, Christian?
What you need to know is that it's not just France that has established temporary layoffs or furloughing. The Germans did this, they called it furlough. To give you an idea, the impact of furlough, the positive impact, was approximately EUR 150 million, combining domestic and overseas, with France accounting for approximately 60% of that EUR 150 million. Don't forget that with these cash amounts, there are also savings in terms of social charges. You can actually double that figure in order to see the positive impact on our results. Thank you. Next question.
Next question comes from CIC.
Jean-Christophe. Jean-Christophe, what are you doing, sleeping? Jean, sorry, we can't hear you. What are you doing, windsurfing? Direct the antenna towards us. You're too far from your mic. We can't hear you. We can't hear a thing you're saying, Jean-Christophe. Sorry, you're going to have to improve the link and get back to us.
Next question comes from Virginie at ODDO.
Yeah. Two quick ones, one on contracting, an update on orders from local authorities in France, a decrease in H1. Local authorities suffered from the crisis measures announced by the government. Do you think they're on a par with the matter in hand, how do you view the trend from local authorities going forward? Second question on Gatwick, there's a risk of a covenant breach. What would the consequences of that be for you and for them on the possible breach of the covenant?
On the first question, my colleagues can chip in.
Just a figure. Germany, two months ago, the federal state injected EUR 12 billion made available to local authorities, in particular to offset the significant decline in tax receipts so as to allow them to resume the launch of projects and to fuel economic recovery. The construction segment is very responsive in terms of economic recovery because immediately you can do a large number of small and medium projects that don't require ministry of green light, give people jobs to kickstart the economy. In France, for the time being, the figures are far more modest, EUR 1 billion maybe. We're trying, that's what I was pointing out earlier. We're trying to convince the government, the powers that be, of the need to move a lot faster. What we're saying is, it's really a race against the clock.
What's not done now, and in fact, today, we should have done it a month ago, will make the recovery even more challenging going forward. We are struggling with local authorities because the government effort to improve their finances has not yet been undertaken. It'll come, no doubt about it. It'll come probably a little late versus what we could have done, and as compared to what was done in countries such as Germany, which isn't the only one. Anything to add to that? Pierre? Elections, yes.
Maybe just to add that there's a precondition that was met that the government should complete finalize the local elections. That's happened. It wasn't necessarily obvious end of May, early June. Governance is now in place at local level with local authorities, local government echelons. That's an achievement. That's very positive.
Now in France, the various financial resources, packages announced by the government, backed up by the European Recovery Plan, must be rolled out across local authorities in France. We don't have the detail, but we clearly sense that everyone's in agreement. There's no reason for it not to happen. It might be a bit late, but it must happen.
As regards Gatwick, the key point for VINCI is to really lend heavily on liquidity. It was important for Gatwick to continue to benefit from good liquidity. In case Gatwick obtain a banking loan of GBP 300 million from its institutional banks, and also obtained an agreement in principle from the Bank of England, like other U.K. companies, to benefit. As the case in France, of commercial paper, which will give it the insurance of not having any cash problems between now and the end of the year, even beyond.
Regards the covenants, there's a covenant issue which, of course, depends on projections submitted to the lenders because it's done periodically. They're calculated on a provisional basis. There may be a covenants issue by the end. This is preempted through a discussion underway, negotiation underway by the company, advised by banks, with banks that are pretty much the same as those that lent the GBP 300 million in the second stage with the bond lenders. This process is getting underway. Obviously, it's a bit early to say any more at this stage, but we're confident the financial division of Gatwick and VINCI Concessions on the fact that we'll reach a reasonable agreement with the lender reps in the coming weeks. When that's done, we'll disclose, and Gatwick will do that, Gatwick communicates regularly on its financial situation. VINCI takes up Gatwick's communication.
We will disclose in due course, hopefully the end of August, early September, on the upshot of negotiations that are just getting underway. Let me add that there's also ongoing dialogue, Gatwick with the rating agencies. Gatwick's rated by the three agencies, S&P, Moody's, and Fitch, all that done smoothly and in parallel. Next question.
Next question. CIC.
Good morning. Can you hear me?
Well done. Yes, we can.
Just a detail now. I have two questions. One on VINCI Construction, another one on airports. Let's start off with the airports. Is the investment plan for the new airport at Lisbon.
Being maintained or is it being postponed? On the VINCI Construction, do we have measures on the sites for preservation, as we've seen in France and internationally? Looking ahead, what is the outlook for improvement of VINCI Construction in France?
We were barely at breakeven previously. What will happen for specialized construction such as Freyssinet?
Thank you. Basically, you want everything, don't you? Well, yes. That shouldn't come as a surprise to you, Xavier. Nicolas, on Montijo.
Well, on Montijo, no particular message. There is an adjustment that will have to be made in the next few weeks or months, but it's more about the ability to have a face-to-face discussion that is delaying things. There's no real delay here. There's an adjustment which is more of a reflection of the restrictions on meeting and traveling. Now, this has been going on for three years. I think once we set everything, which I think should be done in the next six months.
On construction, I don't think we can give a detailed answer to all of your questions. What you need to take into account, as we've said before with these presentations, France suffered far more during the first half than most other countries for a variety of reasons, but that's not the point. The consequence of this is that the impact on VINCI Construction France within VINCI Construction overall are far greater than the impacts in other geographies because there's a loss of revenue, there's the cost of coming to a halt, the cost of restarting, loss of productivity. This is far more visible in France, that's why, because France suffered the most.
My second point, and then I'll hand over to Jérôme Stubler.
You seem to be referring to the U.K. as a potential center of loss. That's not true. The U.K. has restructured. It's in the recovery phase, and the U.K. should deliver a decent performance given the arrival of the major HS2 project and other smaller but still very profitable projects that will come on stream. On Freyssinet, well, it's the same logic as with VINCI Energies. It's a number of small projects with a high technological input. We're not concerned about these, but it has to be said that some of these projects had to be stopped, consistent with the halts of many projects where Freyssinet is one of the players.
We could elaborate on this, of course, but basically, you need to go back to what I was saying earlier, which is that, yes indeed, 2020 at VINCI Construction will be more difficult than in other areas of contracting, had my range of 150-250 basis point decline in EBIT. There should be an upturn starting 2020, and the EBIT margin at VINCI Construction 2021 should be better than what we saw in 2019.
One additional point. Christian referred to cash flow. There is a write-back of receivables. Have these been booked to results?
Well, I'm sorry. I don't have the answer to that. You've caught me out on that one. Marie, do you have an answer to that question?
I didn't put that correctly. This refers to longstanding receivables, but within a normal deadline.
Well, our permanence means a return to good fortune when you're able to book the claims further to your collection efforts. There are no significant claims that have been booked to the results for the first half. That may happen afterwards, which is what Jérôme was saying. Here, we're talking about payments, receipt of payments. Can we envisage a return to better fortune?
Yes, we've spoken about this in the past. Can there be significant claims at the end of the year? Well, we're working on this, we can't say much about this. We're working on it.
I'd like to use the opportunity to respond to your question and just to briefly cover another matter. What we've seen during the confinement, during the lockdown, and this accounts for the good level of our net debt, is that we used the opportunity because people were less busy, they were often at home, to invoice what was delayed. That means that there were areas where we were somewhat behind in terms of our invoicing. We're going to have to continue with that very good discipline, which is invoicing in a timely manner. I hadn't realized this, but there were some areas where we were quite behind in terms of our invoicing.
Morgan Stanley, next question.
Yes. Morning, gentlemen. My first question, just to return to your guidance, sir.
Margin contracting, if I do a back end of the envelope calculation, second half with a margin of 50-60 basis points lower than H2 last year, looking at a drop of 200 basis points on the year margin higher than last year, looking at a drop of 250 basis points. Listening to some of your peers, an increase year-on-year, the margin seems rather aggressive. In the range that you've given this contracted margin down 150-200 basis points, where's the confidence interval? We're on 200, everything goes smoothly, return to better fortune will be at the top end of the range, or it's an aggressively high number like Christian, we're an optimistic wide-eyed optimism to give an aggressive target hoping to reach it?
It is difficult to answer you, Nicolas, because it really depends on the corner of the table where you're doing the calculation.
It's difficult to know the temperature and pressure conditions that we'll be living in the second half. We consider the external health environment conditions would be give or take what we're living today. On that assumption, we are confident in the fact that we will deliver the guidance that you stated. If the pandemic goes on endlessly, and if the wave sweeps across the countries several times, the situation will be radically different. We'll have to take account of difficulties in operating our projects in certain geographies. It's always very tricky in the middle of this incredible storm to give a detailed answer to your question.
Okay. I'll try differently. On construction, when you mentioned a margin 2021, slightly above 2019, maybe, the drivers of this improvement is what? It's a restructuring effort underway four, five years, new contracts, decrease in input costs, labor cost inflation. What gives you greater confidence in your ability to deliver the construction margin improvement we've been expecting for a long time?
Well, answer, it's everything you said except the last part. We have a good order book, and as I said earlier, it makes us confident, and being confident and serene is the best way of working our margin. It's very difficult to work on our margin if we have a constant sense of being short of work. The fact that we're confident, at least on the bigger deals.
That's good. Secondly, the discipline of margin over volume and refusing to do deals that don't have the right contractual terms and conditions and good margin. This discipline, as it's profoundly cultural, it takes time to instill and implement, and we're now drawing, reaping the benefits of that.
Then the number of kind of one-off difficulties which gradually will be resolved, overcome, and again, particularly the difficulties of Entrepose Contracting. We have a turnaround plan to restructure and to plug some units of Entrepose Contracting to other businesses of the group so as to resolve gradually over time the problem that Entrepose Contracting is faced with that won't be resolved on its own given the oil and gas environment.
Yes, we're listening.
Two quick follow-ups. One for Nicolas on airports. Could you talk to us a bit about granularity on the outlook? Short, midterm, we're thinking of ANA in Portugal that seems to be better placed on the road to recovery in terms of capacity in Portugal. Versus Gatwick that seems to be struggling far more with a big question mark on the value of the asset today.
Nicolas.
Hi, Nicolas. Well, there are two separate things.
There's the spot, the immediate situation that depends on the cyclical situation in countries and measures taken recently by the U.K. in respect of Spain, while creates an impact that hardens the crisis for an asset. Conversely, the VFR flow from France to Portugal is looking good. Transavia, easyJet, passenger levels are looking good. The short and medium term, we're quite exposed. We have a lot of VFR, and we're more short and long-haul versus short medium-haul and long-haul other players. We think those are good, useful, sustainable factors. It's difficult when there's a lot more long haul. That's an immediate pressure. We have assets that have local territorial dynamics. U.S. VFR to Dominican Republic is working well. Those are one-off effects that we measure.
It's very difficult over the long term, four, five years out, to know how each of the drivers, long, medium, or short VFR versus term VFR and short medium-haul is working. Domestic, Japanese, French is working well. Long-haul international or long-haul business is not working so well. That's what we can say about the current trend. We feel that we're slightly more protected against that. We'll see over the next four or five years how the recovery unfolds across these segments. On the mid-term, the medium-term outlook based on Gatwick, you have a big goodwill we saw at ADP, at ANA, the impairments. Was it not on the cards at the end of June to book an impairment on Gatwick? "Yes, my microphone's on," says Christian. We booked an impairment June 30th on a concession that's one of the shortest that we have.
It's a lot more difficult with a short concession to catch up the delay. It's Chile and our colleagues who are co-shareholders did the same. Probably it would be on those issues that there'll be a milestone at the end of the year then on Gatwick that has no end by definition. We're confident, of course, on the basis of today's forecast, but we'll repeat the exercise at the end of the year. At this stage, we don't expect a Gatwick impairment.
Okay. One final one on M&A. Have you a degree of appetite that's coming back for small acquisitions, small, medium-sized deals? Have you seen the multiples of prices of VINCI Energies or in concessions prices beginning to return to normal compared to the peak levels of 2018, 2019? I'll ask Arnaud to answer that one.
Yeah, the appetite's still there, depending on our appetite and managerial capacity and the targets. Where we have the people, where it makes sense, we'll continue to do those deals. On the prices, we've always respected price discipline. We're not seeing any big slowdown because there's no competition. Private equity funds still have a lot of money. There's a lot of liquidity. It's not going to change our take on the reasonable price level to do these deals.
Kepler Cheuvreux next.
Hello, two questions. First on the energy division, the margin was halved despite the fact that the top line was more resilient. Margin was down 300 basis points. I saw that one of your competitors was down by only 170 basis points in terms of margin. Can you give me some detail on that matter? My second question on airports, if I may.
Your strategic vision on airports, has it changed because of COVID? Because of what's happening on low-cost travel? Does this mean that nothing is changing? In which case it means this is the time to buy? Do you feel that all of these problems, low-cost travel, COVID, et cetera, does this mean that you have to call into question the fact that airports are a major development area?
Now, regarding VINCI Energies margins.
You're referring to the result published by S&P, down by 170 basis points. S&P margins are based on 3% EBITDA, including extraordinary items. There's no major difference. You haven't included in the - 4%, you're not including the impact of external growth, which in the first few months of integration is dilutive because with excluding external growth, - 8%. The third answer is that our margin have to be looked at over the long term. There's a seasonal factor here regarding infrastructure, and the strong impact of lockdown in France, which accounts for 50% of our business, of course, has an impact on margins, but this has to be assessed over time.
I would refer you back to the guidance given by Xavier with a more gradual decline at the end of the year, which will be close to the guidance that we gave you in the first half. Two, understand large projects suffered more than small projects. Is there a particular profile? That would be helpful, wouldn't it, for your tables? No, it's global. This is global. Production is global. What we need to be watchful about on the outlook is small orders in our business, where companies at present are being very cautious, and we have seen a decline in small orders. We hope that with the stimulus plans, a regain in confidence, that they will be back on the rise, but they'll have an impact on production overall. Thank you. On airports, Nicolas, will you add something?
Well, on what was said, there is no calling into question of the low-cost model in broad terms. The recovery of low-cost companies is what they're actually holding up better than the major carriers, and basically, they're much more geared towards the VFR business and for the broader recovery of traffic. If you track what's been said by the various specialist bodies, it's going to take a number of years, but depending on the type of traffic involved, it may not be exactly the same date, depending on the type of traffic. There is no calling into question of low-cost models in the airline business. What we're doing is we're seeing people adapting, remaining flexible, and basing themselves on point-to-point business.
Well, my question, in fact, was. I didn't put it properly, probably, but does the group continue to see airports as an area for strategic investment, which has been the case for the past 10 years? You've gone from zero to becoming the biggest global operator. What is going on at present, does this call into question your ambitions? Does it challenge those ambitions, or do you think this is a passing phenomenon? Do you think it's a cold? Is it the common cold or something more serious? If it's just a common cold, then it probably means that now is the time to step up investment because there will be more opportunities at a reasonable price. Well, my answer very clearly requires some degree of nuance.
Does it call into question our commitment to continue to develop over the medium and long term in the airport sector?
The answer is no. We are long-term players, therefore, we are able to put into perspective short and medium-term impacts as opposed to or versus a long-term vision. I would go as far as to say that what defines a strategy is to be robust, to be resilient, and not to let yourself be unduly influenced by short or medium-term fluctuations. That does not mean that there will not be any adjustments to certain areas of the model, basically, we are convinced that air transport is a response to meet a global demand, which is very complementary with other means of transport, there's no reason for us to believe that we should begin to consider the end of air transport.
If you add to that the fact that air transport is being very unfairly attacked for some time now in terms of its carbon footprint, all this will be ultimately settled. Air transport, depending on the experts, accounts for 2%-3% of global CO2 emissions. You also know that traffic and our motorways in France is 6% of French emissions, and the use of your means of communication is probably twice as much as the global emissions of CO2 of the airline sector. The airline transport is very well organized in order to provide a collective response to the ambition, which is to improve things regarding the carbon footprint. You hear Guillaume Faury, who is forecasting a mono corridor decarbonated plane by 2035.
He may be a few years off, if you add all these parameters, there's no reason to challenge our goal, which is to deploy, develop in the airport sector. This being said, should we start buying up left, right, and center? Well, of course not. For a very simple reason. We think that there will be few opportunities because the owners, be they public or private, I think they probably feel that this is probably not the best time to put their asset up for sale. Secondly, trying to anticipate, to have the traffic forecast is going to be very difficult. It is more difficult now than one year ago because at present we're really in a situation of total uncertainty regarding the various platforms. We're not calling the strategy into question, definitely not.
Of course, there are no major ambitions for acquisitions in the near term, and this doesn't really matter because I don't think there are going to be many opportunities anyway.
We're now going to move to questions in English.
The first question in English comes from Gregor Kuglitsch, UBS. Sir, please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. I know we've been going on for a long time, so I'll try to be brief. The first question is on, you mentioned breakeven point, I think on net income for airports. That's at least your aim for 2021. I guess my question is, could you give us what traffic level you think are you breakeven at whichever level, either net income or EBIT, ideally. Basically to figure out what traffic do you need to be breakeven. Second question on the sort of rebound into 2021. You've elaborated a lot on margins and construction. I think I heard volumes also similar in construction, but correct me if I'm wrong. I guess my question is, what about motorways? Do you think traffic can recover broadly to the level of 2019, or do you think that's unrealistic?
Finally, I'm going to push again on the extension. Can you just, I know it's still early stages, but just so we get a feel of quantum, is it similar in nature to the size, i.e. the duration extension and CapEx that we had back in 2014 or 2015, or should we be thinking about something completely different? Thank you.
Okay, I'll answer in French. What I said earlier, I didn't say that for our guidance, we were aiming at breakeven for VINCI Airports in terms of net income in 2021. I said that we could hope to move close to breakeven in 2021. Can we give an idea of what we would need by way of a traffic decrease to return to breakeven? I mean, give you a percentage, it would be a traffic drop of what? 25%, 30% give or take. With -25%, -30% traffic decrease we should be around breakeven net income. Of course, it's an overall figure. It really depends. Versus 2019, I'm saying.
Absolutely.
25, 30% versus 2019. Depends on how it occurs across the airports and across the various customer segments. On the motorways, as we indicated, we're not that far from the 2019 curve. We've even exceeded it during certain days in July. We're -2% during 1st of July, 26th of July period. Depending on external temperature, pressure conditions, we can imagine that we'll return to the 2019 curve, stabilized during the final months of 2020. As to possibility to discuss with the French State of a partnership as part of the recovery stimulus package, it's far too early to say anything about that as we speak.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Tobias Woerner from MainFirst. Sir, please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Three, if I may, they are really follow-up questions. You have EUR 17 billion capital employed in the airports business. Similar to the question before, could you give us an idea of what level of traffic you'll meet your WACC? Number one. Number two, I heard what you said about asset impairments earlier, a lot of companies have used Brexit as well as COVID-19 as a triggering event. Just remind us why that wasn't the case for you. Just lastly, I have to say, I was surprised by the performance of your VINCI Energies business, which has been a stellar performance over years and years, clearly there's a crisis going on, I understand that, again, relative to some of its peers.
Would you say that it is possible for this business, however, to recover its margin quicker than the other contracting businesses? Thank you.
Well, I think we've already covered that last point regarding VINCI Energies. We said everything, in fact. VINCI Energies made a very strong impression on us because of its resilience, and we did not expect anything else. This is why we invested significantly in VINCI Energies for a number of years, and furthermore, 2020 will be down in terms of EBIT margin, but we think that we will be able to go back to a normal level of EBIT margins at VINCI, approximately 6% from 2021.
We'll quickly recover, given if nothing changes during the second half of the year. Yes, compared to our competitors, we're just slightly better and we're comparable and just a bit slightly better than SPIE.
Okay.
On the airports, I didn't really understand the question, but what we said in the previous question is that a decline in traffic, well, it's 25%-30% decline in traffic compared to 2019 would enable us to get close to breakeven in terms of net income. This is something that we can still hope for 2021, depending on how the pandemic evolves.
The question really was, at what traffic level decline or recovery do you cover your cost of capital again?
Well, Nicolas said earlier that we are ahead somewhat in terms of our business plan, in particular in Portugal, and this is true as well in Japan and other airports, and therefore we have some margin even if we are somewhat behind. Given that we were well ahead for the past six years or so, and if, as we hope, things gradually recover by 2024, then there shouldn't be too much of a problem versus our initial objectives of internal rates of return. We can't really say very much more than that at present. In fact, it's impossible. Is that okay?
Yes.
Thank you very much. Enjoy the summer. In particular to Christian, he's going to be catching the plane to celebrate his 31 years of presence in the group. Yes, and hopefully my house has not yet burned down. Thank you very much, and we hope to see you in person next time. Thank you all very much.