Thanks for joining us for this audio conference. You probably found on our web side, the presentation that will serve as a background material to what we have to say. We are here at our head office in Rheem Malmezon. I'm joined by the major chief executives of the res businesses who be able to answer your question in due course. And Christian Lavery 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 will come as no surprise you. We were heavily hit by this pandemic that impacted without exception on our businesses and all our geographies. But as we'll see with varying reactions, depending on the country. First of all, I'd like once again to thank our people. There are many in number France and Abroad who rallied during the lockdown phase is clearly their commitment that allowed us to continue to operate companies.
Thank you, in particular to our colleagues from motorways, airports, railways who already insured 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, and my thanks to all those who rallied to organize and implement our numerous solidarity initiatives, actions that we're there to support those who are in the frontline, but also to assist the most vulnerable people, we have continue because we've all understood that this crisis will indeed, weaken people who are already in a vulnerable situation So we have always believed that VINCI and the strength of civic engagement. And the wave of exceptional solidarity prompted by this crisis has shown that it is indeed a shared convict and a conviction that leads to supportive, acts of solidarity at every level in the group and 1st and foremost on the ground Turning now to the business, while 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 0. And the work's contracting business reacted very differently depending on the country.
For example, almost total halt in France, but business close to normal in Germany and government department shutdown for the most part in France, in particular, the urban planning departments that staff planning permission requests. So this leads to a difficult first half revenue down 15%, and EBITDA remains positive, but sharply down in net income posting a loss of 1,000,000. 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, 1213 leads to a sharp reduction of over EUR 2,000,000,000 of our net debt. Over a year.
So our foremost priority at the start of the crisis was to ensure our people and projects were safe. So 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. And then 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, but we see a little clearer than we put back in mid March.
No one could predict whether the crisis was going to last a long time. And very swiftly, we began to consider a resumption in activity by joining drawing up in countries with government departments and the unions guide such as in France, the OPP, BTP guide to organize, not just the recovery, but it's very important for the future to work under COVID because no one knows when this pandemic is going to disappear naturally or when we'll have an effective vaccine, and we swiftly reviewed all ways of cutting expenditure, partial activity in France and 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 our standing receivables. The recovery is there across our businesses, but still very slow in airports. More about that, and I'm going to restrictions put in place by money countries. Now the way in which countries responded to the crisis is clearly shown on the next slide.
Slide, 14, you see that France is down, 23% on the half, whereas the rest of Europe only, declined by 4 or 5 percent, 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, but 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 was beginning to now to go deeper dive. Funchy or 2 routes got off to a good start to the year.
Traffic increase up 4.80% between the 1st January the beginning of a lockdown in France on 17th March. Traffic then collapsed as I said, decline of 87% light vehicle, 36% for heavy vehicles. And since the end of lockdown, gradual recovery that accelerated was lifted, and I'll tell you later where we're at as we speak at VINCI Airport, 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.
And 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 Airport on spending and CapEx, but it didn't prevent us from continuing the most strategic work sites for the future at Cienucveil in France, with the runways at Toulon, Aege in Belgrade, Serbia, Santiago, where in fact, the construction site never stop in spite of heavy disruptions locally pre COVID. And then Japan Osaka, while we're inauguring, of course, remotely, on 5th August. That's next week.
The most important renovation of the historic airport at Osaka each I mean, the most important renovation for 50, 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 construction with the HS2 line in the UK in France. The Lincoln project, which will be the new head office of Total La Defense and several contracts for the Great 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 there's in spite of more significant declines, minus 10% 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 energy to continue to acquire new companies a dozen of all sizes in the first half for additional revenue full year of some EUR 200,000,000. 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, declined far more significant in France than most of the other countries with some countries such as the OS Germany or the Czech Republic that over the half posted a growth over last year. Fintech Construction Slide 20, Ditto. Same contrast, depending on the country, minus 27% France, but only minus 5.5% outside France, particularly difficulties with Entrepose Contracting has 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, sounded a few months ago.
VINCI Construction Projects were often these as in the construction and whose human density is stronger than Avinci Energy and Eurovia. There are more workers and people involved in the same project with multi activity, many different trades. And so 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 re adapt changing rooms and shower areas. So as to comply with social distancing, we're 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. Worksites halted almost total absence of booking residential during the lockdown phase, minus 48% of the half, but also a freeze on the staffing of planning permission, which will pose a supply problem, that's really, a pity because the demand for residential is once again strong. If we'd look at everything that includes block sales to institutional investors, July, bookings to date are up 17% over last year.
So 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, at the end of the year, a offering to meet the very strong residential demand. I'm not going to hand over to Christian as per usual. I'll come back into calls, told you about the future. Thank you, Xavier.
So looking at Slide 23, which shows, as has already been said, that, revenue declined in the first half by 15 percent where the sharper drop in concessions down 32% than in the contracting business, which was down 11%. Constant scope and, foreign exchange, the decline in revenue comes out at minus 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 entry concern acquisitions by Vasi in LC mainly in Europe as well as Vasi construction in excavation. The scope changes account for additional revenue of approximately 1,000,000,000 for the first half regarding currency variation. This was, an early minor because the euro, 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. Countries and the Australian and New Zealand data. Slide 24 shows that the decline in 1st half revenue was for Sharper in France, almost minus 23% then for the international business down 5% at constant scope. And minus 10% like online. This reflects the complete standstill of most of our business in France for a month from the beginning of lockdown on 17th March.
And therefore, as Xavier's pointed out, revenue outside of France in the first half accounts for 40 9 percent of total revenue versus 44% for the first half of twenty nineteen. 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 Jeffrey is 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 costs to reflect the declining 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 major decline in their contribution due to the fact that it was impossible to cover all the structure costs, personnel and equipment.
EBIT was down by EUR 2,000,000,000, but for the first half, but it's still positive, thanks to the contribution from that C or to Worten West C in Energy, and you can see from the slide. Of course, the COVID impact was emphasized by seasonal factors. And 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. Now moving on slide 26, we are looking at the income statement.
A strong decline in the contribution of The company is accounted for under the equity method, due mainly to the holdings of RCF but Vascea part in the campsite and El Paso Paris Airport, a nonrecurring net charge of almost SEK 120,000,000 reflecting depreciation of goodwill as well as intangible 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, that by 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. Positive contribution of minority interest reflecting, our share from partners in our shares in some consolidated subsidiaries and also a net income of the net loss of GBP 294,000,000 versus a net profit of CHF 1,560,000,000 in the first half of twenty nineteen. Slide 27, the situation is more in encouraging then 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 500,000,000 versus the first half of twenty nineteen.
Which is due to, 1st of all, EBITDA of 1,800,000,000 down 50% on last year. And a variation in working capital requirements and account provisions of almost CHF 500,000,000, whereas it was negative to of almost EUR 1,400,000 in the first half of twenty nineteen. Lockdown in this regard had a positive impact because while disbursements were limited due to the low level of activity, customer payments were a 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 and also that we had a, a leftover from the CI CE Government subsidy, operating caps Thanks was more or less stable. Part of the investment had already been launched before COVID, and therefore could not be stocked abruptly.
And also, this item includes investment underway for the construction of the new head office of Vasily and not there. Which has been ramped up since early 2019. Finally, investment for London Gatwicko included for the whole of the first half as opposed to 2019. Investments in concessions are slightly up in 2019. This involves investments launched at Bardasseeoto water, as such as Discrasible Bypass and Fasi Abbot mainly in Cambodia, Serbia, Portugal, regarding acquisitions, There were very few acquisitions in the first half of twenty twenty, approximately SEK 100,000,000 involving approximately a dozen companies that have been mentioned previously, by Avacian Nerve Million 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 1,000,000,000 at 13th June versus a moderate decrease of 1,000,000 for the first for the first half and by over 2,000,000,000 compared to 30,000,000,000 through 20 19. Now moving on to the balance sheet, notwithstanding exceptional difficulties encountered in the first half. The, balance sheet of Vafi remained extremely strong, particularly looking at the past 12 months.
Capital employed down SEK 1,700,000,000, mainly due to the improvements in WCR. Shareholder equity, excluding minority interest is stable. Non current provisions are up by EUR 200,000,000 and financial debt down by EUR 2,200,000,000. Slide 29, it's are, and we redeemed loans maturing for a total of 1,600,000,000 a bond issue of 1,000,000,000 issued by Versi SA on 2012 with a 3.4% coupon, redeemed in March and a bond issue of 6 1,000,000 issued by ASF in 2010 with a coupon of 4.1% and was redeemed in April and in May. With appropriate market conditions, we were able to issue a new bond issue for coffee hoards 950,000,000 with a coupon maturity made through 2031 with a coupon of 1% only.
This issue contributes to the the favorable, debt schedule. You'll see this in the annexes. It has an average of 2.58 years, and you will note that we do not have to redeem in any one given year of more than CHF 2,500,000,000, which is very reasonable given our cash flow. Furthermore, average cost of our debt comes down to 2.3% for the first half versus 2.4% for 2019 as a whole at 13th June. It was less than that, but we did not have the impact of Gatwick at that time.
We have seen during the crisis that The rating of Vesey is very well regarded by investors. Our long term credit, ratings are A- with S and P and A3 with Moody's have both been confirmed. With a stable outlook reflecting the strength of our concessionaire, our constructor 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 at Vaseon Liquidity, meaning our ability to very rapidly raise significant amounts of cash. 1st of all, in order to meet our commitments, namely a 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 market is drying up for companies over several months. The extraordinary situation that we have faced this year validate the relevance of our policy, which some may feel is a little bit too conservative at times. I guess this backdrop of as soon as lockdown began, we sought to consolidate our the liquidity because we were entering her uncharted waters among Vasim, we were among the first beneficiaries of the reopening of the commercial paper market, thanks to the support of the ECB in Bank of France. And in parallel, we were able to obtain from our long standing banks as additional credit facilities with a 1 year maturity for EUR 3,300,000,000. And finally, as I have just said, Through Coffeehood, we issued a 950,000,000 bond issued maturing in revenues.
After these various transactions, we had to end June a cash buffer of EUR 18,000,000,000, breaking down into EUR 5,800,000,000 of cash, commercial paper, 1,200,000,000 credits, facilities, 11,300,000,000, of which 8,000,000,000 maturing and November 2024. The good news is that, country to our expectation, operational operating cash remained very strong throughout the period, meaning that our debt level at 13th June is barely above that. And 2019, whereas usually midyear, it is significantly lower compared to NDA 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 are 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 mentioned that, of course, that underlying trends on the rise such as home working will expand, but let's not think it's a rare because the company can never be reduced to a mere setup of distant contractual ties. A company is 1st and foremost, where a collective counselor for 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 and highly fragmented societies who, more than ever need to strengthen the social fabric. And 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. And 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 haul, to ensure the safety of our job sites to ensure our public service missions, to revise our spending, our structures, our investments to redeem our job sites is really down to the credit of our local leaders. So we reaffirm our conviction that is part of our culture is that the right decisions are taken close to the ground. 1st and foremost, and we have decided on the right organization highly decentralized offering the best adjustments agile and responsibly to the inevitable crises that will lume on our way.
Other lesson learned, we know how to work under COVID. The firm is, guides that I mentioned earlier that were viewed as site resumption guidelines. We use them as guidelines to work under cover. 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 hot spots from the epidemic. So new challenges arise for companies as well as countries are 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. So these global challenges must lead us to a change in mindset by that, I mean, the top down process, the responses must Give place to swiftness, agility, horizontal and local cooperation. Logics based on partnership and trust. And to illustrate these principles, if we consider the recovery plans that are long here and there. The good news is that these recovery plans are all very green focusing on the environmental transition, but I think that the implementation of these recovery plans during 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 had seen a return to growth, even over last year, And, the full month of June up until June week 30 is at minus 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 concession 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 high service bus routes or a free flow toll system.
Concessions 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 Departemarle Vincier ports, like 33, 34. Things are slower VINCI ports 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 UK citizens to, give up their holiday plans be in Spain. That's a major tourist destination, for them as it is for other European countries starting from almost 0 in terms of passenger traffic. We were at minus 83% during week 30, as to say, last week.
We expect. And this is illustrated by the 2 point charts you see on Slide 33, our positioning should allow us to, resume activity faster than others because we're at Three quarters of the far visiting friends and relatives and tourism minus 1 quarter on, the professional travel segment that will be slower to pick up than the other two segments. Here, the pie chart on the left where you see that our customer base is 50 percent domestic and intra European, which should also, favor us in the long the long haul or the long distance segment accounting for only 10% of, point to point travel in other airports. We expect the end of the year, we'll see a traffic drop of the order of 65 percent, 2021 will once again be down versus 2019, but quite possibly at least we hope with a traffic level that will bring us to close to breakeven in terms of net income on that business. So it's in this business, quite naturally that we reviewed downward significantly our CapEx as illustrated on Slide 34.
In contracting, as we've said, we're off to a good recovery close to normal particularly in France. Striking as of 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 client follows. And France, the good news is obviously our order book, as you can see on slide 36, said, an historic high, 1,000,000,000. That's excellent news, even if it does conceal the weakness of small and medium sized projects.
It will 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% to 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. We expect that inevitably there'll be a reduction of our EBIT margin across the year, but probably limited to 150, 200 basis points of the EBIT margin.
Over last year, So 2020 won't be, a good year. We've, expecting that to be the case for some months in these quite circumstances, the board that met yesterday decided not to pay an interim dividend because of our negative result recorded during the first half, but this in no way pre judge is what we've decided early twenty 21 in respect of full year 2020. What is important is to look to the future and, 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, to current challenges, energy efficiency, new mobility or communications requirements. And as already mentioned, concessions and PPPs in the broad sense of very effective levers for recovery that are available to public authorities. And we are on promising markets across our businesses for the long term and the high sponsiveness 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 And we can only do a good job when we're confident. So 2021 will be the year of the rebound and we see this far more clearly in the coming months.
The growth will be increasingly green as we have seen in the various stimulus plans. And we are particularly happy to have redefined ambitions in terms of in the environment in 2019. We have set ourselves specific goals and commitments, bringing together all of teams in our group with 3 main for us working for climate, optimizing natural resources through the circular economy, and preserving the natural environment. The environmental issue, there's not only concern the 2 the specialists head office, but it concerns all of our 220,000 employees. We support them by providing training in order to be for them to be able to act with the proper level of information and skills, and we're mobilizing them by launching in September.
The environment price, which will enable us to share enhance and reward the initiatives all the components of our businesses in the group. Our vision of performance is a global vision I sent out in our manifesto, and I would like to say a few words about the social and societal aspects, which we must not forget. We are improving in terms of 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 of our profits. This year, of course, is going to be a bit more difficult, but last year, through our various, schemes. With the individual collective, we distributed 1,000,000 and 100% of our French employees and our shareholders of the group and 90% of our employees around the world are eligible for a share acquisition, Vasi Share acquisition at very preferential race, we are improving on the theme of societal responsibility, which is very much part of our group culture.
This year, we will be welcoming 5000, secondary school pupils from interurban areas for 5 days. And we are working very hard on social integration through work, and we're probably one of the to champions of this in France with the 2500 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. 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 Hualain Maisons at Head Office with the heads of our business units to respond and answer to all your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, please key 0 1 on your keyboard. Question from JP Morgan. Good morning, Xavier. Good morning, Christian. Thank you for taking questions.
I have 3 questions. Number 1, on contracting. You feel that margins will be down by 150 to 200 basis points. Can you give a bit more granularity on the different divisions. I suppose Veseq construction will be down more, but what impact should we expect further to the restructuring of Ottopause contracting?
And do you think you will come back to 2019 margins in 2021. And if not, what will be the decisions arising for that? The first question question for Christa 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 W. C.
R. In the second half as the business picks up again? And that's my second question. And number 3, You talked about the possible extension of motorway concessions, versus an exchange for a carbon in decarbonation investment. So how many years of extension would you expect on that basis?
Thank you very much, Eladim. Well, I think I'll give the floor first of all to Tricia. 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, but that it will be restored by the end of the year. So 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, could it wrong in the positive sense, previously. So we may well, then we'll may well be the case. Now for the 3rd question, I will hand over to Piacope, who will tell us what he can say on this, which is, a partnership with the state Pierre. Good morning.
Yes, 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 system for toll in France, and this represents major capital spending. The state has begun to ask us for proposals, which are being examined by the GTIT 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 it a that with the exceptional situation, you need an exceptional answer. And we understand fully that this is such a deep crisis, but, what we must do as I tried to explain earlier is to change our recipe our method and move into a partial 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, but we do see there is a genuine will to move into this new logic based on partnership and trust. Now regarding the contracting business, I don't want to for store what may be said, anticipate what may be said by my colleagues.
But if I see energy, will probably be at the low end of the bracket by sea construction perhaps at the high end of the bracket. And for 2021, I'd go as far 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 2020 to go back close to 2019 levels for margins when they're in for 2021. Now having said that, having said that, Will my colleagues have any comments on that, Pierre, Jerome, and Christian, who is extremely optimistic today, they said that it may even be better in construction in terms of EBIT margin in 2021 versus what we have the results in 2019. Do you want to elaborate on that, Christian? Well, 1st of all, I can confirm the 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, but the data, which we closed out, financial statements effect in June is rather special reads the brunt of the crisis. And of course, it was too early to have 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 for 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 able to work on the margins on order books, which will increasing steadily.
Next question from Royal Bank Canada. Yes. Hi. My first question concerns the dividend. You say that you You can't rule out a payout for the 2020 results.
Could you say? If there's no second wave that you're confident 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 sadness of your contracting clients. In terms of cash out disbursements, you're not expecting in the second half to see, an acceleration of the first half. And my third question, Concerns Airports.
So things have stopped in terms of March in the second half of the year. May not be a lot more active in 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'll, have a catastrophic mindset and you imagine the next January, the pandemic will continue to gain ground and the macroeconomic picture will be even bleakers. And 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, but that's pretty unlikely. Our central case is that things will continue to improve, as I said to Eladie earlier. 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 that, those earnings. I have two questions on WCR on 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 is almost was almost at a standstill case in France. It's the opposite now because we're returning to normal and contracting. So Cash in will be about 2 months, but we're resuming, disbursements because we're getting subcontractors, suppliers where 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 year for month for cash.
You know, the previous months, we should return to a WCR level on a path 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 impacts on our accounts. Part of the impact pretty modest. I mean, it's not 3 digits, but it's nevertheless significant.
Counts, provisions for receivables, impairments, all segments, contracting and even, in, airports where we decided to provision certain receivable. 3rd question on airports, Nicolas will speak to that. I didn't fully understand the question. Don't hesitate to answer, Rippie. Nicola, I'll try and answer what I understood.
We had passenger traffic Manus, minus 61% the first half, highly contrasted between the two quarters. Javier said
All
institutes are banking on minus 65 full year. So the second half is lower and the first half on, average to go from minus 61 to minus 65 is lower as spot to date, we're at around minus 80 2, minus 80 4 for July. So it's a slow recovery necessarily H2 won't be as good as some slightly lower than H1. That's traffic, but the impact of OpEx reduction measures progressive will be more significant in H2 and CapEx underway then continued. But CapEx as far as CapEx necessarily in H2.
That's what we can say qualitative comparison between the first half for airports, if that could answer your question. Yes, that's perfect. Thanks. The only thing I'd like to add as regards ports is temporary unemployment follow schemes that you applied during the alert phase. I suppose that's gonna going to continue in the second half.
Well, we, we have a global airport network, as you know, France it's about 20,000,000 passengers in 2019, minus 10%. The 255 support measures vary in France, a temporary unemployment support schemes also in the UK for Gatwick and Belfast and Japan. Some in Portugal, but they're not necessarily the same across the world. So, 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, but we have a global network and so 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. Thank you for taking questions. 3 questions. 1 on contracting, another one on airports.
The first question on contracting, can you help me understand You factored in the decline in productivity arising from social distancing for an unknown period for regarding your order books. Have you booked charges for this? And how do you factor this into the annual the second question on airports. Can you give us an idea on what is Vascee's reports approach to retail? Are there negotiations under where underway?
And is this model in the process of changing? Because there may, which was something that may involve greater sharing of risk between the airports and the retail players. And last question, can you give me the total amount of that was received by Versi for the first half for, following and all the various client support measures. Thank you, Neville. 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 is which is close to 0 at Eurovia and Vase energy in the process of normalization of Vase construction, of course, there will always be some expenses because you have to provide masks, sanitizer, pay the crane operator for over time and this kind of thing.
But what we see is that human nature is by extremely flexible in this new bank ground has brought about changes in the method of execution and it can have positive consequences. And overall, we have 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 Jean Stigler. And if you don't totally agree with me, please, give your opinion, sure. So you so Jerome's to be on phase out what I'm saying.
Avedo, and invest in investing energy. Yes, I agree. The only impact was on the, concerned the implementation of the establishment of lockdown with some stop and go effects which had a one off, in fact, and, otherwise, virtually 0, as Xavier. And on Limac? No, what I wanted to add is that, of course, contracts that are signed and been signed since we kicked off the lockdown phase, our contracts for at least the biggest contracts include a COVID disclaimer.
Could you well, yes, feel free to elaborate on that. Of course, we have 2 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. And then we have private sector contracts where, around the world, we have force majeure clauses, which enables us to extend deadlines, but we should not always provide financial compensation for contracts, which were signed during the COVID crisis. And now this does not apply because the COVID crisis is an established fact. So what we've included are 2 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 1, at the time the contract is signed. I apologize. You have 1,000,000. Just to say that COVID impacts has been behind us now. We now know how to work under the constraints of COVID as to our clients and to, emphasize what Xavier said is if we have new constraints in a new period of lockdown, we know how to deal with this and our customers also know how to deal with this and we're aligned on that.
So I think that's reassuring if we have in terms of productivity and additional costs Nikola. Well, 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? Well, not quite because you don't go immediately from one situation to another. There is an adjustment period, and I think everything that Jerome said earlier applies there's still quite a lot of work to be done vis a 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.
So If you add all this up, we admit we have to be a little bit patient and we have to, protect ourselves into 2021. To look forward to normalization of margins or perhaps margins slightly above 2019. Now on, guaranteed minimums, we don't have a single approach to this. It provides the digit of our detailed funds model is that our local managers implement these contracts. Sometimes we have demags and sometimes we don't.
A proportional approach to traffic. So we have we're going ahead with locals situations and sometimes we exchange a long term value trading off long term versus short term. So there were different types of contracts and a sector, which is impacted, including ourselves. So there's no immediate transfer risk from one player to another. We apply to the contracts and, the closest appliance in some cases.
It varies depending on our assets, there's no single approach to this to communicate on this. Just questions on airport, the long term. Do you think there will be more risk sharing on airports between retail and airport operators more. I don't know. It 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, but there's no actual change in the, equilibrium, which has to rest on risk sharing, but no major shift that we can foresee in terms of the sharing of risk regarding Firdo, Christian, What you need to know is that it's not just France that has established a temporary layoffs or, following the Germans did this. They called it furlough. And but the to give you an idea, the impact of furlough, the positive impact was approximately 1,000,000 combining domestic and overseas with France accounting for approximately 60% to that 150,000,000. But don't forget, that with these cash amounts, there are also savings in terms of social charges. So you can actually actually double in that figure in order to see the positive impact on our results.
Next
question comes from CIC Hi, it's Jean Christophe. Jean Christophe, for 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 VLSini at Odow. Yes, 2 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 the path with the matter on hand? How do you view the trend from local authorities?
Going forward. 2nd question on Gatwick. There's a risk of a covenant breach. What would the consequences of that be for you and for them? On a possible breach in the covenant.
On the first question, my colleagues can ship in. Just a figure. Germany, 2 months ago, the federal state injected 1,000,000,000 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. Cause immediately, you can do a large number of small and medium projects that don't require Ministry of Greenlight give people jobs to kick start the economy.
In France, for the time being, the figures are far more modest, EUR 1,000,000,000, maybe, and 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 a really a race against the law, what's not done. Now. And in fact, today, we should have done it a month ago, we'll make the recovery even more challenging going forward.
So we are struggling with local authorities because the government effort to improve their finances has not yet been undertake. 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? Yeah.
Elections. Yes.
Maybe just to add 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. So governance is now in place at local level with local authorities, local government, Echelon. So that's an achievement.
That's very positive. And 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 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 like for VINCI, is that really, lent heavily on liquidity.
It was important for Gatwick to continue to benefit from good liquidity. It's your case, Gatwick, a Tena banking loan of SEK 300,000,000 sterling from its institutional banks and also obtained an agreement in principle from the Bank of England like other UK companies to benefit as a case in France of commercial paper, which will give it the insurance and not having any cash problems between now and the end of the year, even beyond. Zigard's covenants as a covenant issue, which of course depend on projections submitted to the lenders because it's done periodically. They calculate it on a provisional basis. There may be a covenant 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 land the 300,000,000. And the second stage with the bond lenders. So this process is getting underway. Obviously, it's a bit early to say, anymore 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. And when that's done, we'll, disclose and Gatwick will do that.
And then we Gatwick communicates regularized financial situation. And VINCI, takes up Gatway's community. So we will, disclose in due course, hopefully, the end of August September on the upshot of negotiations. So they're just getting underway. Let me add that there's also ongoing dialogue Gatwick with the rating agencies, Gatwick's rated by the 3 agencies, S and P, Moody's and Fitch, all that's done smoothly and in parallel.
CIC. Good morning. Now can you hear me? Can you
hear me? Well done. Well done.
Yes, we can. Just a detail now. I have two questions. One on Vansycon Construction, another one on Airports, that starts off with the airports is the investment plan for the new airport at Lisbon. Has it been maintained or has it been postponed along the vessel construction on Do we have measures on the sites for preservation as we've seen in France and Internationally.
And looking ahead, what is the outlook for improvement of Vasce construction in France. We were barely a breakeven previously. And what will happen for specialized construction such as Fresenib, And thank you. So basically you want everything, don't you? That shouldn't come as a surprise to Xavier.
Nicolas on Monteville. Well, on Montujo, no particular message, that 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 the 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 3 years.
I think once we set everything, which I think should be done in the next 6 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 Vesey Construction Firms. Within Vesey Construction overall, far greater, than the impacts in other geographies because there's a loss of revenue.
There's the cost of coming through all. The cost of restarting, lots of productivity, This is far more visible in France and elsewhere because France suffered the most. And my second point, and then I'll hand over to Sean Steuartier. You seem to be referring to great the UK. As a potential center of loss.
That's not true. The UK has restructured. It has it's in the recovery phase. And the UK should deliver decent performance given the arrival of the major HS2 project and other smaller, but still very profitable projects that will come on stream. And on Fresinae, while where it's the same logic as with Vasea Energy.
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 holds of many, projects where Fresina is one of the players. I mean, 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 Massey Construction will be more difficult than in other areas of contracting, had my range of 150 basis point decline in EBIT, but it should be, there should be an upturn starting 2020. And the EBIT margin at Advassi Construction 2021 should be better than what we saw in 2019. One additional point, Christian referred to cash flow, there is a writeback of which sivables of these being booked to results.
Oh, well, I'm sorry. I don't have the answer to that. You've called me out on that one, Marie. Do you have an answer to that question? Well, so I didn't put that correctly.
This refers to long standing receivables within a normal deadline. Well, well, you are permanent means return to good fortune when you're able to, book the claims, further to your collection efforts, but there are no significant claims that have been booked to the results for the first half. That may happen afterwards, which is what Jerome was saying. But here, we're talking about payments, receipt of payments, which Now can we envisage a return to better Fortune, yes, but we've spoken about this in the past. Can we can there be significant claims at the end of the year?
Well, we're working on this, but we can't 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 use the opportunity because people were less busy. They were often at home.
To invoice what was delayed. So that means that there were errors where we were somewhat behind in terms of our invoicing. So we We're going to have to continue with that very good discipline, which is invoicing in a timely manner. And I hadn't realized this, but there were some areas where we were quite behind in terms of invoicing
Morgan Stanley, next question. Yes. Good morning, gentlemen. My first question just to return to your guidance. Margin Contracting If I do a back end of the envelope calculation, 2nd half with a margin both 50 to 60 basis points lower than H2 last year.
Looking at a drop of 200 basis points on the year margin higher than last year. The looking at a drop of 250 basis points and listening to some of your peers, an increase year on year. The margin, it seems rather aggressive. So in the range that you've given us, contracted margin down 150 to 100 bps, whereas 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 aggressive, a high number, like, Christian, we're an optimistic wide eyed optimism. Do you give an aggressive target hoping to reach it? Answer. It's difficult to answer Unicolor, because it really, depends on the corner at the table where you're doing the calculation.
I mean, it's by that it's difficult to know the temperature and pressure conditions that will be living in the second half. So we considered 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.
So 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 the margin 2021, above, slightly above 'nineteen, maybe. The drivers of this improvement is what It's a restructuring effort underway for 5 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 on margin. It's very difficult to work on our margin if we have a constant sense of being short of work. So 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 is discipline as it's profoundly cultural. It takes time to instill and implement, and we're now, drawing reaping the benefits of that.
And then does a number of kind of one off difficulties, which gradually will be resolved over coming, in particularly, the difficulties of entrepreneurs contracting, and we have a, turnaround plan to restructure and to plug some units of Antopause contracting to other businesses in the group so as to resolve gradually over time. The problem that Antwerp was contracting is faced with that won't be resolved on its own given the oil and gas environment. Yes, we're listening. 2 quick follow ups. 1 for Nicola on Airports.
Could you talk to us a bit about granularity on the outlook? Midterm, we're thinking of A and A 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 Hi, Nicole. Well, there are 2 separate things. There's the spot, the immediate situation that depends on, the cyclical situation in countries and measures taken recently by the UK in respect of Spain well, creates an impact that hardens the crisis from asset, but conversely, the VFR flow from France to Portugal's looking good.
Transavia, Easyjet, passenger levels are looking good. And then the short and medium term, we're quite exposed. We have a lot of VFR and we're kind of more short and long haul versus short, medium haul and long haul other players. So we think those are good useful sustainable factors. It's difficult when there's a lot more long haul.
That's an immediate impression. Then we have assets that have local territorial dynamics. USVFR, 2 Dominican Republic is working well. Those are one off effects that we measure. But then it's very difficult as a long term 4, 5 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. So we feel that we're slightly more protected. Against that, but we'll see, over the next 4 or 5 years how the recovery unfolds across these segments. And on the midterm, The medium term outlook, based on Gatwick, you have a lot of good good, the big goodwill we saw at ADP at ANA impairments. That was not was not on the cards at the end of June to book an impairment on Gatwick.
Yes, my monocophone's aunt, Christian. We booked an impairment June 30 on a concession That's the shortest one of the shortest that we have. So it's a lot more difficult with a short concession to catch up. The delay, is Chile and our colleagues who are co shareholders did the same. So probably be on those.
Issues that there'll be, a milestone at the end of the year than on Gatwick that has no end by definition So we're, we're confident. Of course, on the basis of today's forecast, but we'll repeat the X IV end of the year. At this stage, we don't expect to get weak impairment. Okay. And one final one on M And A, Have you a degree of appetite that's coming back small acquisitions, small, medium sized deals.
Have you seen the multiples of prices? Vinci energy or in concessions, prices beginning to return to normal. Compared to the peak levels of 18 90. Answer that one. Yes, 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 deal. On the prices, we've always, respected price discipline. We're not seeing any big slowdown because of the competition. Private equity funds still have a lot of money. The lottery liquidity is 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 And I saw that one of your competitors was down by only 170 basis points in terms of margin. Could you give me some detail on that matter?
And 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 or in which case it means this is the time to buy or Do you feel that all of these problems, low cost traveled, COVID, etcetera, does this mean that you have to call into question the fact that airports are a major development area. Now regarding Manu Marsha the net lessee in average margins, you're referring to the result published by the down by 170 basis points. Now speed margins are based on 3% EBITDA, including, at children items, So there's no major difference. And you haven't included in the minus 4%.
You're not including the impact of external growth, which in the 1st few months of integration is dilutive, the occurs with excluding external growth minus 8% and the 3rd answer is that my margin have to be looked at over the long term. There's a seasonal factor here regarding infrastructure. And locked down and the strong impacts of locked down in France, which accounts for 50% of our business. Of course, has an impact on our margins, but this has to be assessed over time. And I would refer you back to the exact, the guidance given my Xavier.
With a more gradual decline at the end of the year and which will be close to the guidance that we gave you for the first half. In the first half to understand large projects suffered more than small projects now. Is there a particular, but profile? That would be helpful, wouldn't it, for your tables? No.
It's global. This is a global and 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 of regaining confidence that they will be back on the rise.
But they'll have an impact on production overall. Thank you. On airports, Nikolas, will you add something on what was said? There is no calling into a 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 they're more from basically they're much more geared towards the VFR business and for the broader recovery of traffic. If you track what's being 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. So there is no calling into question of low cost models in the airline business.
And, what we're doing is we're seeing people adapting remaining flexible and basing their sums on point to point of business. 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 come from 0 to becoming the biggest global operator. And what is going on at present? Does this call into question your ambitions, does it challenge you or those ambitions, or do you think this is a passing phenomenon?
Do you think it's a cold? Is it a common cold or something more serious? And 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, will 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 and therefore, we are able to put into perspective short and medium term impacts as opposed versus a long term vision. And 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, but basically, we are convinced that Air Transport Meet is a response to meet global demand, which is very complementary with other means of transport, and there's no reason for us to believe that we should begin to consider the end of air born. And if you add to that, the fact that Air Transport is being very unfairly attacked for some time in terms of its carbon footprint. All this will be ultimately settle air transport depending on the experts accounts for 2% to 3% of global CO2 emissions, but you also know that traffic and our multi whites 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, and 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 and your new gear on fully who is forecasting a monocarridor decarbonated plane.
By 2035, it may be a few years of, but 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 our collection center? What, of course, not for a very simple reason, we think that there will be few opportunities because the owners be then public or private. I think they probably feel that this is probably not the best time to put their asset up for sale. And secondly, trying to anticipate to have to traffic forecast is going to be very difficult.
It is more now been 1 year ago because at present, we're, really in the situation of total uncertainty regarding the various platforms. So 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 us include the matter because I don't think there are going to be many opportunities anyway.
We're not going to move to questions in English.
The first question in English comes from Gregor Puglies, 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. So the first question is on, you mentioned breakeven point.
I think on net income, for airports, that's at least your aim for 'twenty one. I guess my question is could you give us what traffic level do you think are you breakeven at whichever level either net income or EBIT ideally, so basically to figure out what traffic do you need to be breakeven Second question on the sort of rebound into 'twenty one. So 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 motorway?
Do you think traffic can recover broadly to the level of 2019, or do you think that's unrealistic? And then 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 in CapEx that we had back in 2014 or 2015? Or should we be thinking about something completely different?
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 Airport in terms of net income in 2021. I said that we could hope to move close to break even in 2021. Now 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 bit of traffic drop of what, 25%, 30% give or take with minus 25 30% track, big decrease. We should be around breakeven net income. Of course, it's an overall figure. It really depends versus 2019, I'm saying. Yes, 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 when minus 2% during 1st July 26th July period. So depending on external temperature pressure conditions, we can imagine that we'll return to the 2019 curve stabilized in, during the final months of 2020. As to Possibility to discuss with the French state of a partnership as part of the recovery stimulus packet.
It's far too early to say anything about that as we speak.
Thank you very much. The next question comes from Tobias Verna from Madras. Sir, please go ahead.
3, if I may, and really follow-up questions. You have EUR 17,000,000,000 capital employed in the airports business. As soon as the question before, could you give us an idea of what level of traffic you'll meet your WACC number 1? Number 2, I heard what you said about estimates earlier, but a lot of companies have used, Brexit as well as COVID nineteen as a triggering event just to remind us why that wasn't the case for you. And then just lastly, I have to say I was surprised by the performance of your VINCI Energies business, which has been a stellar performing over years years, and clearly there's a crisis going on to understand that.
But 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?
I think we've already covered that last point regarding Vasy in our sheet. We said everything, in fact, Vasi and now she, made a very strong impression on this because of its resilience. And we did not expect anything else. This is why we invested significantly in Wesley Energy for a number of years 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 Vasi approximately 6% from 2021. We'll quickly recover.
Given if nothing changes during this, the second half of the year. And yes, compared to our competitors, we're just slightly better and we're comparable. It's just a bit slightly better than the speed. On the airport, 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% to 30% decline in traffic compared to 2019 would enable us to get close to breakeven in terms of net income, and this is something that we can still hopeful for 2021, 2021, depending on how the pandemic evolves.
The question really was when 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, but given that we were well ahead for the past 6 years or so. And if as we hope, things gradually recovered by 2024, then there shouldn't be too much of a problem versus our initial objectives of internal rate of return, but we can't really say very much more than that at present. It's, in fact, it's impossible. Is that okay?
Thank you very much. Enjoy the summer And in particular to Christian is going to be cashing the plane to celebrate his 31 years of presence in the group. And 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.