Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the update on latest strategic developments of VINCI Concessions Conference Call. I now hand over to Christian Labeyrie, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of VINCI. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you, Jaime Martí. Hi everyone, and thank you for attending this conference call. I am today with Grégoire Thibault on the VINCI Investor Relations team. We are also in the room Nicolas Notebaert, CEO of VINCI Concessions and President of VINCI Airports, and Belén Marcos, Executive Vice President of VINCI Concessions and President of VINCI Highways, along with their teams. Nicolas and Belén will present the three recent strategic developments of VINCI Concessions.
First, the extension of the Aerodom Airport Concession contract in the Dominican Republic. Then, the acquisition of Northwest Parkway in Denver, Colorado, by VINCI Highways. And finally, the acquisition by VINCI Airports of a controlling stake in Edinburgh Airport in Scotland. But before leaving the floor to Nicolas and Belén, I would just like to emphasize how these transactions fit with VINCI's long-term strategy, and particularly with our capital allocation and M&A discipline.
As you all know, VINCI is a cash machine which generates year after year a significant amount of free cash flow. It has surged in the last five years, overcoming the COVID crisis, and reached a record level last year. Our cash allocation playbook is clear and steady over time. First, we return cash to our shareholders every year through a dividend which is based on our net profit after tax, applying a payout ratio of at least 50%. We also make sure that the creation of new shares to the benefit of our employees is offset by the implementation of share buyback programs on a regular basis in order not to dilute our shareholders.
But since around 40% of our cash flows and of our net profit come from the French motorway concessions, which will expire between 2032 and 2036, we must allocate enough capital for acquiring new businesses which would contribute to the cash flow generation post-VINCI Autoroutes concession contract expiry dates, since in our base case scenario, we cannot realistically bet on which decision the grantor will take them.
Obviously, we would be more than open to negotiate possible contract extensions against long-term investment commitments in the context of emergency in decarbonization transport infrastructure, but this does not depend only on us. Our target is thus to keep on winning long-term contracts, capitalizing on group synergies, and acquiring existing concessions in order to maintain a long duration of our asset portfolio, providing visibility and steady returns. Of course, this strategy is closely managed under strict and consistent criteria.
Our investment target equity IRR consistent with our cost of capital in order to keep on creating value in the long run. We always prefer not to do a deal than doing a bad deal, as long-term value creation is the cornerstone binding us all, giving us responsibilities vis-à-vis our shareholders, and in particular, the first of them are employees. In terms of business mix, the success of VINCI's in several decades has been based on the complementarity between operating long-term concession assets and project-based contracting activities.
We intend to continue to reinforce this integrated concession energy construction business model, which is a clear competitive edge, while, at the same time, continue to densify our international presence on core markets, particularly in Europe and Americas, in order to benefit from a more diversified geographical mix overall and be in a position to sense a larger variety of business opportunities.
Keep on building the future and the life post-French motorways has always been a top priority for VINCI management. The relevance of this strategy is well illustrated by the impressive developments conducted by VINCI in the airport business on one hand and in energy-related services on the other hand. In addition to being a global leader in construction, our historical business, our roots, which enabled us to build this successful business model, VINCI has become a world leader for airports and energy in hardly 10 years.
With more than 70 airports under management in 13 countries dealing with around 270 million pax annually, VINCI Airports is the largest privately owned airport operator and has a unique diversified portfolio which is valuable. With more than EUR 25 billion of revenue and 140,000 people employed, the energy business of VINCI is the largest global player on its market.
In the energy business, not only is the outlook bright against the background of energy and digital long-lasting megatrends worldwide, but also promising in terms of new business opportunities. Cobra IS's integration within VINCI is a success. Over-delivering our initial expectations enables VINCI to build a portfolio of long-term assets in renewable energy production, mainly solar plants and onshore wind farms, but also into long-term PPP contracts of high-voltage transmission lines, such as the outstanding one in Australia awarded at the end of 2023. On its side, VINCI Energies is a remarkable acquisition machine with a unique track record of value creation, a top-class organization, and an unrivaled array of global expertise.
In the concession business, we look in priority at infrastructure targets, essentially airports and highways, offering long maturities well beyond VINCI Autoroutes contracts' expiry dates, stable regulatory frameworks, robust growth prospects, and potential synergies with the rest of the group in order to deliver growing returns all over the contract life in excess of the cost of capital. Finally, as a result of our strategy consistently deployed, you have noticed that in 2023, the combined EBITDA of our airports, of our other concession and energy activities, exceeded the one of our French motorways. French motorways accounted for almost 60% of our EBITDA in 2006, but less than 40% today. That trend will continue going forward. Let's get back to the purpose of today's conference call.
The three assets that we will present are low-risk, defensive, mature with long track record of traffic, offering very long durations, the average duration of a three-deal is more than 70 years, and located in protective and stable countries with a low political risk, if any. In addition, for each of these deals, we will bring our expertise, our recipes to improve their top line, optimize their costs, OpEx and CapEx, and their financial structures. When it is time to calibrate the price, we are ready to pay for an acquisition based on cautious business plans. You know us. The important question is the return we expect. The cost of equity we retain for each project has been calculated, taking into account its own characteristics, its own merits, its own macroeconomic data, its own financial structure.
On top of this cost of equity by project, we include a margin of safety to determine our target equity IRR for the project at the binding offer stage. In other words, for each project, we target an equity IRR higher than its cost of equity, but we also make sure at the decision-making point that such equity IRR of the project is higher than the VINCI Group cost of equity. This methodology leaves additional margin of value creation since, as already mentioned, we establish our business plans on prudent assumptions with regards to volume and revenue forecasts, cost and CapEx management, etc. Due to business confidentiality purposes, we will not disclose this equity IRR for the three deals presented, but be sure that they are consistent with this methodology and with VINCI cost of equity.
In addition, keep in mind that these three projects will reduce the risk profile of VINCI and make it even stronger, diversified, and international. Last but not least, with a total effect of around EUR 5 billion, including the operating net debt of these assets, they will enable VINCI to re-leverage its balance sheet while reducing its risk profile, contributing to the optimization of the work of the group, and keeping a solid credit rating and a reasonable firepower to pursue the execution of the group strategy I described before. Finally, don't forget that the group cost of equity is not a static matter. It's not a static notion. It is not set in stone.
As a matter of fact, it evolves not only because of macroeconomic parameters changes, but more importantly, also according to the evolution of the risk profile of the group, which is determined by its business mix and its geographical exposure, these being to a large extent the results of the M&A activity. I now hand over to Nicolas and Belén, who will highlight the key takeaways of these three major deals that they just finalized. At the end of their presentation, feel free to ask any remaining question you may have.
Hello. So my name is Nicolas Notebaert, I'm the CEO of VINCI Concessions and President of VINCI Airports. That's in line with what Christian just presented. Our organization, which is quite unique in the market, is that business development and asset management are made by the same teams within VINCI Concessions, with two specific divisions in airports and land. Naturally, we share what Christian just described about value creation and operational delivery. Our policy didn't change for the past 12 years, starting with ANA.
I would say in the present trend, we will not speak about OMA, which was the same type of acquisition end of 2022, which has a new product graph linked to the U.S. market, we think, in the present geopolitical world and the dynamics of the U.S. economy, everything linked to North America has far better returns at this moment, as we could experience in the recovery of our airport traffic, which is booming in North and Central America at the moment. Let's start with the first deal we delivered, which is Aerodom. So for the ones we want to follow, I will follow approximately the slides, the text slides that you have for the ones we want. Aerodom, we invested in, if you remember, in 2016 to fund Advent for 15 years remaining at the time.
That's one of the optionalities that we have advanced is that through time, we create a new business opportunity in the relationship with the government. We deliver new cargo terminals, new central plaza commercial activities. We encountered the COVID, which had a lower effect here in the Dominican Republic, and then we're having talks both for compensation of COVID and potential extension.
And finally, we got the deal that is presented today. First, let me remind you, six airports, including the capital city, Santo Domingo. It's a mix, I emphasized it, which is not only tourism. We don't compete with Punta Cana. We have part of the VFR market of the Dominican American, which is a booming market. It's one of our best recoveries. We are to date 32% above 2019 in terms of traffic in our portfolio of Dominican airports.
The idea was that there was the need for a new terminal in Santo Domingo before the end of our existing contract, which was 2030. So our commitment is the following: we pay an upfront fee split in two parts of $775 million to the Dominican government. First of all, first has been paid. The second one is linked to our financial close, which is aimed around mid-2024. We have absolutely no risk. Everything is in U.S. dollar.
It was already financed originally by U.S. banks, both in debt and bonds. The second commitment is to deliver a new terminal of approximately $250 million that will start in 2026 and end in 2028, approximately 4 million passenger capacity. Absolutely no risk about it. But we got extra rights along this deal. First, the recovery of charges increased that did not increase during the recent inflation period.
So we recover 13%+ inflation we recovered at the beginning of the year. So that's done. That's in our fingers. We'll get in November inflation + 3%, and we'll get next November, next year inflation + 3%. And then we secured inflation-linked U.S. CPI as of 2024. The second protection is that the contract extension was fully approved by the president, adopted it, and with a specific law in the parliament that was filed with strong support.
And finally, we have an arbitration clause in the Chamber of Commerce of Paris. So it's both a securing of the existing deal and the best we can make out of an existing contract. As you know, it's our best EBITDA margin in the network, 85% EBITDA margin. And it starts from the 2023 figure, which was EUR 173 million EBITDA for this asset.
So that's why we consider a good deal to get EUR 30 extra in commission. The growth potential is still, again, the Dominican population growth, the VFR, particularly the U.S. and Canada-based Dominicans, a part of the tourism, and also a propensity to fly, which increased between the Dominican American and the Dominican living in Santo Domingo. This was the first deal.
I did not mention that the PPP is one of the best of our networks in terms of extra euro verticals. You would not be surprised. U.S. travelers spend a lot. And we have around $35 per departing pax, which for such a small airport is a very good figure that we increased a lot since we entered in the market. Again, a very strong operational, commercial, and technical leverage for us, very good connections with the country, with the Dominican management, and a few expats.
That's typically part of the VINCI Airports model. Second transaction we like to develop today, our strategy for VINCI Concessions is also to develop more highway projects, and particularly in the U.S. As you know, there are not as many transactions in the highway markets with traffic risk because naturally, we want to deliver equity and traffic risk. And what we looked at a lot of investment in the past years and what struck us in the case of Northwest Parkway is that we have a very fast-growing corridor within Denver and in Colorado.
Colorado is a top-growing state in the U.S. Denver is a top-growing city in Colorado, but the corridor we look at has a very fast-growing dynamic. Secondly, the duration. Christian mentioned it. We look at duration with protective contractual terms. And first, and we let Belén develop, we saw very good operational synergies with our expertise.
As you know, we have a particularly technological firm called ViaPlus in Texas, which is dedicated to toll collection. And we see operational plus that I let Belén, the president of VINCI, I will develop for you.
Hello. So starting with slide 7, as Nicolas mentioned, the three main aspects that we identified in these projects are the first one is the location in a very dynamic area with very good economic growth. The second one is a favorable contract, mainly with regards to the tolling regime. And the third one is the several operational synergies and optimizations that we have identified during our due diligence.
So all these items bring strong growth to the cash flows of the project, as you can see from the historical performance, but also would allow for an MSDA to double by 2030. So moving to the specific details of the location, on the first factor, on the economic side, the catchment area of this highway has historically grown beyond the average U.S. GDP, mainly driven by the aerospace, the IT, and the pharma industry.
This has also driven population growth beyond the average American rate, and we see this, in effect, in the numerous developments around the corridor, both residential and commercial. According to Oxford Economics, this trend is expected to continue in the long term for both GDP and population growth. Please note that generally, Oxford Economics forecasts have been traditionally rather conservative.
With those two things, the location of these projects is particularly benefiting from this trend since the traffic is a mix of airport, leisure business, and to a leisure extent, commuting. This makes the mix of traffic rather resilient. Moving to slide 9, on the second aspect, the contractual side, you are probably aware already that the toll indexation formula is very similar to other projects in the U.S. and provides for increases in tolls that are more aligned with the economy.
Tolls have been expected to grow in the future as they have done generally in the past beyond inflation. But another important aspect of the tolling regime that maybe you are not aware of is the possibility to apply variable tolling. This would be a different toll depending on the time of the day, subject to a cap. This tolling mechanism allows us to scale the tolls to the demand, which will help us manage better the capacity of the road in the future. In slide 10, you see the past performance of the project and already shows all these aspects. Traffic has historically grown beyond GDP. Tolls have grown also beyond inflation, and general EBITDA has proven a solid growth too.
In particular, the tolling formula has allowed in the past to be aligned with the economic growth of the area while providing protection during the times of recession, thanks to the floor of 2%. And last, but not part of this, on the operational side, we have, as Nicolas said, identified several operational synergies and optimizations. In general, for example, the application of the variable tolling, but also the collection process.
As you know, we have our local expertise with our teams from ViaPlus in Dallas that are already doing these types of operations in other parts of the country. We have also identified other opportunities that are not currently included in our business plan, like additional revenues, possibility of completion of the beltway, and also our better position and additional references to develop projects in Colorado and elsewhere in the U.S.
Yes, that will be my transition. Apart from the merits of this project that is very dynamic, both in volume, increase of population of 3.5% yearly, plus a very good traffic tariff rule, as Belén just mentioned, we think it's a good reference to start in the U.S. And as you know, managed lanes and over-traffic risk projects exist both on the east side and some states.
We can mention later on that we have the two benefits of the quality of this project, duration and value, but also the fact to enter the U.S. market, which probably in the highway sector is the most interesting at the moment. I come back to our last recent deal, which is the Edinburgh Airports, starting for the ones who follow on slide number 13. You know the capital of Scotland. So first, we start with a partner we know, which is GIP.
Our previous experience with Gatwick has been successful, both from the upside of the project we invested in in 2019, then from the management of the COVID that was with a very low traffic in Gatwick and the financial and operational management we did together. Now the delivery we have both in Gatwick with GIP and Advent International alone shows that we know very well the UK markets and we know to assess the future, as Christian said, soundly, but also very efficiently. The starting point is a recovery of traffic, which is good in Edinburgh. They are close to 2019 figure and 2023, and they will be over in 2024, which is better than the UK comparable. Secondly, financial figures are above 2019, as we did on our side in Gatwick and Belfast.
There is still room to recover in 2024 because, as you know, the first term of traffic was 11% above 2023. So we expect also better figures on 2024. The competition within Scotland is not so huge. As you know, the Glasgow Airport is the other side of Glasgow and with a market of urban, which is not so interesting as the population with higher revenues lies in Edinburgh.
We are also very happy of the mix of traffic because, as you know, there is a mostly outbound market as everywhere in the UK and the location, I think, Edinburgh to the north makes that there is no competition with the use of planes in the future. But moreover, there is also an inbound touristic market in Scotland, mostly from the UK and Europe, but with potential in the longer future from other parts of the world.
There are also long-haul connections with the U.S., and we expect more in the future. The asset in itself has been well managed and growing in the past years. As you could notice, the airlines making most of the traffic are very efficient airlines, mostly Ryanair and easyJet. We know them very well, both from Gatwick and Belfast, but also from our French and mostly Portuguese airports.
So we know we looked at the deals secured with these airlines in the past year, which combined growth of traffic and commitments in traffic and contracts with tariffs. I did not mention it is a fully unregulated asset. There is absolutely never now, never in the future, any regulation of charges by any authority. It's a free market. We deliver the charges, increase rewards in accordance with the deals we have with the airlines.
For the next years, the deals with Ryanair and easyJet are secured on this asset. We have a long-term commitment of charges following approximately inflation. So we know where we put our feet. And again, no calculation of RAB and no regulation of any kind. Scotland is doing well. As you know, Edinburgh is the second city in the U.K. in terms of GDP per capita.
Apart from the economy, the local economy of Edinburgh, which is doing well, education, technologies, and startups, it's a place which is booming in all terms. And again, the whiskey and castles visit and even golf makes potential for future tourism inbound. The investment case to sum up, an attractive U.K. airport market and with, for us, a risk prediction that Christian stressed about the country and an environment of airport that we know quite well.
We know particularly how to deliver the EBITDA and the financials that were in our previous commitments. The UK is also the second country for VINCI after France, precisely, and all the divisions as construction and energy. It's a very important country for us. The high-quality asset within the UK, Edinburgh, is well managed, and we have a strong position there.
It's a 30-year asset without any limit of time and, as I mentioned, unregulated tariffs. We know the transition matters with all airports. So we have governance agreements with GIP that we already experienced and were proved efficient in the case of London Gatwick. We have also traffic growth potential, which will rise to have some CapEx, which are already negotiated between GIP and us. I would say for around GBP 100 million of CapEx, we can deliver more capacity.
There are absolutely no limits of capacity for the long time in this location. It's a slight difference with London Gatwick where we needed a specific program to grow. But we have a CapEx that we can deliver in the short, medium, and long term to follow our past curve. So it's not U.S. this time, but it's a U.K. location with good potential. And again, we derisk it with our long-time partnership with GIP that proved efficient in the case of London Gatwick. That is, what we wanted to tell you as way of introduction, and I think now we are very happy to answer any of your questions on these three deals. We are here with Belén and Christian to listen to your questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will take our first question. Your first question comes from the line of Satish Devekumar. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah, I got two questions here. So firstly, on the Edinburgh Airport, if I look at what's happening structurally in the UK market, there are two things, right? So you've seen a lot of domestic carriers gone out of the market. And then Department for Transport have actually given open access network on the rail. And we have seen strong momentum on, if you look at one of their train operating companies, First Group, has seen a lot of London to Edinburgh.
They've taken a lot of market share in the train. And given that, the pressures that we are seeing from an environmental point of view, could you actually give us more rational explanation? How do you plan to increase the volume growth out of Edinburgh Airport, given that it's right now majority domestic and short all Europe? Yeah, that's my first question.
Then in terms of the U.S. highway, so can you just also explain there in terms of the pricing power and how the pricing has progressed in the last few years so that we get a sense how much more actually left with some of your peers if I were to compare on for the pricing upside there? Basically, I want a comparison versus say in the last two years, there has been the price increase in that particular highway. Yeah, any clarification on that? Also, if you are generally, what is the utilization of those or during the peak hours would be helpful? Thank you.
So Nicolas Notebaert speaking , I will start with the first question about Edinburgh Airport. First, we share the U.K. government priority at VINCI about environment. As you know, we invest to reduce our scope one and two. And the good thing for our targets is that Edinburgh Airport is in the same path. So we'll meet our targets. But about the volume, we did not experience.
We looked carefully at the figures of the past and we made our assumptions, as Christian said, very carefully about the market share. As you know, HS2 starts in Birmingham. And today, the U.K. government did not think that expanding a lot north of Birmingham and in the short term and partly to reach Scotland, which is still very far, it would be very costly to imagine a very high-speed network going to Edinburgh.
So we made assumptions compared to the DfT program , which today is more cautious about going north in terms of train. Naturally, our market to England is not the most growing one, which stays stable in terms of market share. And our biggest market share is for Europe, which is above 54%. And I don't see any potential outside of aviation to go to Europe from Scotland. And then we look also to London. So we don't see, even if we were quite cautious in the future, taking now in our assumptions what IATA and forecasters think about the future. As Christian said, we all have assumptions for the future, which are linked to the market. But we don't see a particular aggressiveness of the train market that would decrease in the long-term Edinburgh Airport traffic.
Actually, just a follow-up there. So if I look at FirstGroup, they've launched this Lumo services connecting London to Edinburgh, which has actually grown like 3X in the last two years. And in fact, they are trying to even expand further, launching more services. So my question is like, are you going to see loss in modal shift? I'm talking about the domestic. It's not about the into Europe. It's more about UK domestic, which is like another 40% of Edinburgh's traffic.
We know there are train services. It is still a very long service from London to Edinburgh. Even the existence of this niche market at this stage of a few hours to go north doesn't change a lot the market share using aviation. London market share today is around 90%. Our growth potential in our plans is not mostly about London. First, because there is a capacity crunch, as you know, in London. Secondly, because we see more development in our destinations. The existence of this train system doesn't change really our expectations for the future.
Going back to the question about going back to the question about Northwest Parkway. As I said, Chicago's traffic in this road is a mix of a leisure and business commuter airport. So it's a very resilient traffic. And because the toll increase formula is linked to the economy rather than to the CPI, we're confident that the increases in tariffs will be aligned with the willingness to trade. And we're confident that our business plan will be able to be met with this increase in traffic. In tariff.
Okay. Do you have anything like what has been? Sorry, yeah.
Yeah, as Belén expressed, as you are believing with GDP per capita, GDP per capita is supposed to mean the propensity to pay because it means that as soon as the people grow in capacity to purchase power, they can afford the toll. So that's why this dynamic rule where most of the time is GDP per capita growth that happens. Make sense in the past, it was around 3% growth all around. And that was GDP per capita in this part of the U.S. So that's why it doesn't put any pressure on the rule because it's always the same value for people a long time. But it's a very dynamic tolling rule.
Okay, Got it, thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Please stand by. Your next question comes from the line of Elodie Rall . Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good evening. Thanks for the presentation. So I'll have a couple. I'll start with the Northwest Parkway opportunity. If you could come back and tell us a little bit of the background there, how it started, how you actually started the discussion to buy this asset, and also why you chose to go for a brownfield project as your main first project. I mean, I understand it's low risk and it's probably a good way to get into the U.S. highway market.
As you said, it's probably the most interesting market at the moment. So is this for you a way to grow, but maybe going into greenfield after that? And if yes, could you talk to us about your ambitions there going greenfield in the U.S. after that? And then lastly, on the Northwest Parkway, we've noticed that traffic is still below pre-COVID level.
So can you talk to us a little bit about the structural impact from COVID on traffic on this asset? Then I have another question on Aerodom margins being at 83%. I didn't realize, well, I guess we knew, but it's good to remind us the margins are so high. So I was wondering if we should at some point model the rest of the airport portfolio going into such high margins and how do we get there?
And then lastly, outside of those three assets, there is a bid, I think, or an ongoing bid on Budapest Airport. And I think you would get the bidding for a 20% minority stake. So I'm not sure what the rationale would be to be a minority shareholder there. And if you could give us an update on the situation there. And yeah, that'd be helpful. Thank you.
Nicolas Notebaert speaking, I will start with the strategy. Yes, U.S. is a good market for many reasons. First, economically, you all see that in the past 2-3 years, the recovery post-COVID is far more dynamic there. Among the zones, which are geopolitically correct. Geopolitically means having a legal risk, which is managed, and also a type of contract, which is secure. Okay?
So we look mostly at the U.S. And since Belén joined us, as you know, she knows perfectly well this market and she will tell more afterwards. Then it's not just between greenfield and brownfield. We look for dynamics. U.S. is a very diverse country where you have very booming parts of the country, like Colorado or Texas, and you have ones where traffic is decreasing. So we were looking at type of assets where we think there is a potential. Then there is technology.
It's an advanced technology country. We are looking at dynamic charging, dynamic tolling. The fact that we have a subsidiary there for dynamic tolling was a strategic choice we made 2-3 years ago. Now we have, by the way, we grew with two more contracts in Houston Zone and Georgia recently, which shows our model commercially is working with this company. Third, greenfield. The problem is not greenfield out of the box. You have multi-billion projects in some states with type of works who sometimes do not fit with VINCI Construction presence in the local states and with type of works which are very different from what we could deliver. So the question for our teams and VINCI Construction is to find some greenfield where our strategy would fit together.
We still think that the level of risk, because we are also a construction company, for a multi-billion project in a state or a part of the world you are not so familiar is more risky than to invest in Colorado with very limited risk in terms of construction, not non-funded operation. So to answer your question, that will really depend. We think there are some projects that we look together with our construction companies in the states and type of projects which fit with our risk control, but it wouldn't be at any cost. Otherwise, the risk profile of multi-billion projects would be damaging on the construction side, at least on the risk level. I will let Belén say a little bit more and I will come back to your questions about the airports later on.
Just to be precise on the COVID impact, this area, the growth that preceded COVID in this highway is linked to construction in the alternative that happened during that period. So there was an artificial increase that was corrected later on. So this is why the levels of 2019 were not recovered in any case. COVID impacted mobility in the network in Colorado in particular, but has come back to the pre-COVID levels in general in the network.
Okay. Coming back to your questions about airports, Aerodom. As you know, we don't have a nominal EBITDA policy within VINCI Airports, but we deliver more than our expectation in EBITDA. Let's remind that our EBITDA last year was 63.2 blended in the consolidated airports. You know, we have a few non-consolidated. And it's clear Aerodom is limited. So what are the reasons specific to Aerodom?
First, I would say it's a U.S. traffic or US-linked traffic in terms of revenues with local-based costs. So it makes a huge difference because we can charge our international passengers mostly while we have mostly local costs. Truly, they spend really a lot. The spend per pax, both in regulated revenues and non-aero, is far above what we have elsewhere. Secondly, we can afford to keep it because it's a dynamic market where we have a fixed base of cost.
Even if we have a little bit of dynamics, we need a few more people with the new terminal, but mostly it's fixed costs. We don't do the ground handling. That's also part of the margin explanation. In some parts of the world, we were obliged to take over ground handling. It's not the case in Aerodom. So we expect a little bit better over time for traffic. The traffic is still growing and we still have a fixed base.
So yes, it will grow probably less than to reach 83 or 85, but we still have a growing ability for Aerodom. Then I think you had a question for Budapest. So Budapest is something that is not settled yet. So I think we'll talk if there is an option at some time. It's not the case of today. We'll be happy if there was any case at some point to talk about it.
Okay, understood. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Luis Prieto. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good afternoon, evening. Luis Prieto here. Thanks for taking my questions and taking the time to explain these deals. I had three very quick ones. The first one is a new risk seems to have emerged in the U.S. in the form of the termination for convenience clause. I'd like to know what the situation is in the Northwest Parkway, whether they have this clause and whether it could be a problem or not. My second question is, given that you're looking for assets in order to substitute the maturing domestic toll roads, given that you already have a minority stake there, would a buyout of OMA be on the cards? And I understand that this could be difficult to answer, but that'd be my second one.
Then regarding the third one, in the results call, Christian answered to one of my questions and he highlighted the scarcity of assets in the market being the main problem. I'd like to know what the company's competitive advantage versus purely financial investors would be in this crowded infrastructure market at the moment. Thank you.
Yeah, regarding the termination for convenience. This particular contract does not have a termination for convenience clause. So the cases that we have seen recently in the market would not apply.
On your second question, we are very happy with our investment, as I mentioned traditionally, OMA. We got 29.99. It's a listed company both in Mexico and Europe. We are very happy because the growth both of traffic and charges last year were above our initial expectation. It's, again, a market very much linked to the U.S. We opened a lot of new routes to Phoenix, to San Francisco, added routes to Houston, to New York. Monterrey is the location of the new Tesla Gigafactory.
So we are very happy again with this U.S. link. And no, we don't have any plan of any kind because we have the financial full consolidation, the share, and the management. So we think it allows us to have this angle and to be listed and to have interest both in Mexico and New York is good for the overall potential of the company.
Your first question, what Christian said and I can emphasize, we keep our discipline. Whatever the scarcity of assets, we first look every time at the same way with our teams to the business plan and we think about the delivery. So that's why we look at assets where we are sure our role will be to deliver operational value out of our assumptions.
And we keep on track and probably we are a bit cautious in the way we look at and then we deliver more. We have two sources of assets, which is probably an advantage. We have sometimes the governments or the official tenders, but you know also that some funds are selling after a certain moment, which is not our case. So it is too soon to get some assets, but we will never look at more assets or downgrade our discipline just to have more.
We just look at a various number of assets, keeping our discipline, but allowing us to have more operational efficiency to deliver as we showed pathway in the COVID time. Because if you look at our delivery and our sites during COVID, we overperform the markets operationally with passively our cost reduction programs.
Very clear. Thanks again.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Nicolo Pessina . Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, good afternoon. Thanks a lot for the presentation. A first question on Edinburgh Airport. Can you give us maybe more color on the key growth drivers in your place? Would you say that there is any area not fully developed in terms of destinations or maybe in the commercial business? And also in terms of the OpEx, would you say that there is any evident inefficiency that could be addressed? Second question on the Northwest Parkway.
How much upside would you expect with the completion of the Denver Beltway? Maybe can you provide a timeline for the construction of a missing portion of the road, which may help in feeding more traffic into the Northwest Parkway? And final question on the M&A strategy in general. Can you provide any update on other deals VINCI may be working on, such as the East Link, the communication port project in Poland, and Budapest Airport? Thank you.
I will start with Budapest or Edinburgh. As we commented with Christian, we cannot talk about new deals that could or not arise in the next months or years. Edinburgh, first, we made a comparison with Gatwick. We are unlimited when we are more limited in Gatwick. First, we work with LCC. The LCC model is that they are the ones investing the more in new planes.
And Ryanair and easyJet, which are the two fastest growing airlines in Europe, account for 60% of the traffic of Edinburgh. They confirm us. They're still ordering planes. That's how it works. And so they are looking at new destinations within Europe with this market base. Secondly, we will develop, as you know, we have a strong aero team along with the Edinburgh team, some new international long-haul. It is still a low market compared to comparable.
So we have potential to grow international direct long-haul in Edinburgh. Talking about COP, we could experience that despite a very good operational efficiency, we got arriving in Gatwick or Belfast after a form. We could do better together. So we still have room for improvement in the operational efficiency, particularly with new technology. We arrive at next-gen security lanes and use of artificial intelligence for detection of material, which proved quite efficient. So that's on the cost base.
We work very soundly that the most important thing together with GIP. That's why also on their side, on our side, it's important. I would add something I didn't tell about this investment is that as was the case with Gatwick, there will be a continuation form by GIP, which is the proof that the price we invested in will be along with new investors' GIP policy.
We committed clearly for only 50.01% and full financial consolidation. But it means that GIP will come back as we did with Gatwick with new investors at the same price, which also shows the sustainability of our pricing strategy. And it means also our operational, technical, and commercial strategy was made together with the seller. And we have now five years of experience of working together about what we can achieve working as a partnership.
Commercially, as you know, the good thing about our new CapEx that I mentioned around EUR 100 million of expansion, it will allow more commercial space. As you know, we enter such a program now in the next months to deliver in London Gatwick. And we have the same policy that will expand a little bit the projects that was meant in order to deliver more commercial space.
We still think there is a room for improvement. And again. Passenger happiness and we have no risk about it. So overall, still room for volume, still room for spend per pax in commercial zone, particularly with the optimization of new CapEx we'll do for capacity and retail. Still room for optimization of cost, particularly keeping the fixed base of cost. So we are very confident we can deliver quite strongly a bit of growth in Edinburgh.
Regarding Northwest Parkway and the completion of the beltway, of course, we don't know when this will be built, but in our estimates, it will be absolutely negative by 2050 in terms of traffic because of the congestion. So at that point, we estimate it will bring around 5% additional traffic to the Northwest Parkway.
Very clear. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
So about M&A, as Christian said, we look at potential airports on highways with the same discipline. The particularity for VINCI is that it does not happen regularly. We had OMA in 2022. We secured the Aerodom deal in 2023, but we could do it just at the beginning of 2024. And now we have these two new deals. We don't have an annual policy. We have a long-term policy to look at potential deals that create value.
And sometimes it came at the same moment, but it is a coincidence. The only potential change in the next month or years is that everybody agrees we reach more a peak in interest rates and that maybe we are more in a period of more certainty about inflation and interest rates, which was not the case in the past two years. But our policy did not change. We look with the same discipline at assets. Sometimes there are more than one at the same moment, but it doesn't change our policy.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Grégoire Knoepfelmacher. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks for taking my questions. Actually, I've got a couple of questions. So the first one is, I think you give sort of guidance on the three assets. You said, I think, Aerodom + 50% EBITDA growth, I think, from now until 2030, and the other two to roughly double. I guess I'm a bit surprised about that because it sounds like in the Dominican Republic, you're actually getting really strong pricing, and perhaps in Edinburgh, you're talking more CPI.
So could you just give us maybe, as quickly as you can? I appreciate you have limited time, but what your core assumptions are to get to those three targets. That's question one. Question two is, I see on the slide for the Dominican Republic that you're going to basically relever the asset. Is that correct? So you're putting on additional debt.
Can you just talk about that and I guess what that means in terms of your actual equity in that asset? And then finally, on the Northwest Parkway, just to be clear, are you already doing dynamic tolling or not yet? Or is this something you could introduce just to understand whether that's a change, I guess, and therefore a potential for improvement? Thank you.
There are answers first. We are operational investors. We are not financial investors. So what we do in every time is to unlock with sometimes technology and management some of the values there. So it's clear that in the case of Aerodom, the price has risen before. Now we have still 3% + inflation two years in a row, but we got the increase of 13% just for the base you have now in the figures, okay, in 2024.
Here we have the traffic assumptions, which starts with the increase we made recently. I mentioned that we rose 32% recently. And our starting point for EBITDA is very high compared to the past because we start with EUR 170 million in 2023 compared to EUR 129 million in 2019. So part of the answer is that we start from a very high point in the case of Aerodom.
Secondly, we are cautious in terms of operations for 2030 because, as I told before, we'll have a cost base, which will be increased a little bit with the new terminal. We naturally put the required OpEx with the new terminal. Apart from this, which is short term, it will go along. We did not put in our figures a potential upside, which would be an open sky with the U.S. Today, these figures are without any agreement of open sky with the U.S. These countries will benefit from the change of category in Mexico. Makes that there are still some type of upside. Full unlocking of this type of rules in the next 30 years, as it exists in Europe, could create even more value. It's not a factor today in our assumptions.
In the terms of Edinburgh, I think we have the opposite, which is the recovery of traffic was not in the original figures. We still expect the recovery this year with a double-digit growth compared to last year. And again, we have optimization of space, I mean, growth of traffic and revenues that are ongoing. So we are very confident about our targets. But again, the starting point of EBITDA is far different than the one we had in the case of Aerodom. In the case of Northwest Parkway?
In the case of Northwest Parkway, you have in slide 11 a fine chart with the drivers of the EBITDA growth. To answer your question about the variable tolling, it's still not in place. It's inside the industrial synergies element.
Synergic?
No. It's not dynamic. It's not dynamic. To clarify, the contract allows for different price at different times of the day, but it has to be notified to the authority 90 days in advance of applying it. And it's not dynamic as in a managed lane. It's just variable.
Okay. So it is the addition of revenues will be the addition of the growth of the central case of charges, which is above inflation, 2% GDP per capita, plus an additional value when we implement a variable tolling between day and night, okay? So it creates more growth. We have the technology to do it very simply with the tags. It's the same principle as the one which is in force in Rueil-Malmaison and Versailles on the A86 tunnel. It's a variable tolling system. The toll varies according to the time during the day and the day during the week.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of José Manuel Arroyas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Thank you, José Manuel Arroyas. Alexandra, I have three, if I may. First one on the Colorado Highway. Sorry if I missed this, but in case you didn't disclose it, could you disclose the net debt of the asset upon acquisition? In other words, the enterprise value you are paying effectively for the asset. Question number two, on Edinburgh Airport, could you give us some CapEx indications? How much CapEx do you need to deploy to, say, grow the traffic by 5%, 10%, 20%, or 30% from current levels? And lastly, sorry, it's about another asset, ANA Airports. I understand the Montijo Airport has lost their environmental license. And I wanted to understand if VINCI could consider building a secondary airport in other locations near Lisbon. Thank you.
The last one, again, there is absolutely no news, and there will not be before a few years. It's not losing or getting, I mean, no project has any environmental license. The governments will choose a solution, and there will be at least a few years to put in place what is required, then it must change. So there is absolutely no hot news on ANA at the moment of this, apart from the growth, which is still sustained. About Edinburgh, I think you had a question. CapEx, there are two types of CapEx. We have long-time asset replacement that is in play, that we checked. And I would say, yes, that's an added value that GIP considered with us.
I would say without criticizing the past, it's more the way we do what we call in French maîtrise d'ouvrage , or program management, providing the CTO first in Gatwick five years ago. And now in Edinburgh, prove that our way, we are still a construction DNA group of delivering CapEx in a very complicated country as the U.K., as you know, from over-expense in over-infrastructure, makes that first will work very carefully about asset replacement. And as I mentioned, we have 80-100, around GBP 100 million of short mid-term extension, which will have two effects. First, some capacity, added capacity. And secondly, I did not emphasize it, it will reach 20 million passengers with such capacity. And secondly, and probably more because usually engineers are a bit resilient to our assumptions.
Secondly, we want to increase the spend per pax, which is also a difference with Aerodom because in Aerodom, we already benefited from our investment in the Central Plaza. From the previous questions, we'll deliver more spend per pax in Edinburgh with this investment. Around 100 and capacity to deliver at least 20 million passenger capacity and more spend per pax because there will be new commercial zones.
The net debt of Northwest Parkway is mentioned in slide 7 of the slide deck. It's $350 million at the end of last year.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Nicolas Mora. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity of the call. First one on Edinburgh. So you talked about the CapEx. Is there more to come from GBP 80 million-GBP 100 million for 3.5 million pax capacity is very low in the UK. The number surprises me a little bit. Is there beyond that a need to do a lot more, i.e., build a new terminal?
Second one on Edinburgh, again, is there an opportunity on the retail side to renegotiate the contracts overall and boost the fees? Because I'm just trying to bridge the 100% to EBITDA by 2030, and I struggle a little bit. I was wondering if there were some low-hanging fruits on retail. On Aerodom, I think there's a concession fee kicking in. Is this one of the reasons why you don't expect the EBITDA margin to grow disproportionately from here?
Last one on Northwest Parkway, what are your assumptions of long-term EBITDA margins? I mean, can this asset go and match what we see elsewhere in the U.S.? Let's say high 80% EBITDA margin. Very last one on capacity on Northwest Parkway. It seems that peak periods during the summer, it's pretty tight. Is there any room to expand to 2x3 lanes, or are you constrained by capacity there? Thank you.
Our capacity to assess Edinburgh is really based on the comparison we made with what we did in Gatwick and Belfast. That creates our confidence. So let's start with what we've done. First, CapEx control. When we entered Gatwick in the way to assess CapEx, I don't think only about the UK market. It was delivered through a contract with Bechtel.
We still encounter some savings, and we made a lot of savings in the way to approach with a more program management way about the CapEx. The CapEx I mentioned is just the pure capacity extension. As I mentioned, there are ongoing asset replacements, regular CapEx. But we really found our way with our own. Every time we make such assessment of CapEx, it's always with our own team that we can deliver first a bit more than the 16.5, which are announced today. I mean, we are engineers.
We had 14.7 million passengers at the maximum. We'll do a little bit more than what we expected with the existing capacity. But we have absolutely no problem to deliver around 100 for pure capacity extension of terminal. But it adds to the ongoing programs, which are consistent with what it has announced with Edinburgh. Secondly, yes, the spend per pax is below our expectation. So at the end of the sorry.
Please. I was going to say, so on top of the 80 and 100, so there's a maintenance CapEx, which is around, what, GBP 30 million-GBP 40 million a year, pounds, no?
Yeah, around. On your side, it's a bit more. But if you take everything into account, yes, you have runways, you have taxiways, you have everything. It's well maintained. So we don't expect at all a surge. We looked at we could have a site visit. And again, our discovery of Gatwick makes that we don't discover that we needed to overinvest. We even saved during COVID, as you know, in order to keep our cash in good position.
So we could visit everything. We don't have any bad expectation. Let's imagine Edinburgh is like for us, Porto or Lyon. It's the type of assets we know perfectly, and we didn't see any complexity that you can have in mega hub. It's really under control, 15 million passenger-like. It has nothing to do with expansion that you can hear in other parts.
The only comparable we had a big expansion, which is Santiago, is to double the capacity to 35 million. That's a different comparable, okay? For CapEx, really, it's something we monitor, and we know the contract, the risk, and so on. I would even add, if you know, Japan is one of the most complicated countries in the world for construction, that we could monitor an expansion in Osaka for EUR 500 million. You can check that it's very different from the announcement of many countries for their hub. We know really it's one of our matters to organize and control CapEx limitation. You're right, we need to increase the retail, right? As you know, we increase retail with renegotiation of contracts, not necessarily in one year, but we take the opportunity.
Secondly, we increase the offer, and particularly with the CapEx, would be useful to display more shops and more. And that's what we start doing. We started to do in Gatwick. So again, we monitor very carefully our expectations, and we never add any bad news on this side about our expectation. For Edinburgh, I think I answered the questions. I will let Belén there was a question about.
No, goodbye. Yes, a couple of questions on the EBITDA. Yes, our estimate is that in the long term, we will reach the mid-80s margin EBITDA. And on the capacity, today, there are no capacity constraints in this road. And in the long term, we don't foresee any either because that's when you can apply the variable tolling, and that will allow us to better manage capacity. There's no need for additional lanes because with our traffic estimates today and the variable pricing, we will be able to manage congestion.
Last question, Nicolas, about Aerodom. Our deal is clear. We have a commitment of only upfront concession fee, $775 million. CapEx commitment, $250 million for the terminal expansion before 2028, and overall, $830 million. If you add some rebates from the government, we accept it to pay an overfee in terms of excess of revenues above a certain margin. So that's why it's not in our central case at all. But if we were overperforming, there is an extra concession fee after 2013. But it's designed in a way that would be an enormous overperformance that we'd share with the government. It's the only concession fee we have over time, again, after the upfront fee that we pay.
Very clear. Thank you, guys.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Éric Lemarié . Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Thank you very much. I have two questions, actually. The first one regarding Edinburgh. You said you have already negotiated with the airlines some tariff increase. Could you perhaps give us some color here, what kind of visibility you got here? I have a question because Ryanair and easyJet, in particular, are probably very efficient, as you said, but are probably very tough negotiators as well. I got a second question regarding VINCI Concessions portfolio overall. Is there any other asset in VINCI portfolio with the same possibility as Aerodom, the possibility to extend concession life of the asset? Thank you.
As I said, our exposure and knowledge with Ryanair and easyJet is very high. Gatwick is the first airport in easyJet network. They are number one in Belfast. They are number one in Lyon. They are present in Nantes, and they are very strong also at number three in Portugal. Ryanair is number two in Portugal, number one in Porto, Faro, Madeira. And they are number two in Belfast, where they also operate, along with Dublin. So first, we know them very well. They have a strong value both in terms of pax. We are private to private B2B relationship with them. And we have long-term commitment with them about deals in airports. We did not negotiate any deal. There are existing contracts, as there was in Gatwick when we took over.
Naturally, we could check confidentially the nature of the long-term contract, as we did with Gatwick, of these two airlines. We could discuss informally their appetite of growth in Scotland and particularly in Edinburgh. We can consider, according to our profile of traffic risk, that they are in good shape. Our experience with them, a big part of our growth in Portugal is made of these two airlines, if you check in the past 12 years. We know that the type of commitments we can make to you and to the markets are based on assumptions that we make talking with these type of airlines. I think more than half of our traffic growth in Portugal is made by these two airlines. That's why it's not only a country assessment.
It's also the knowledge of the market base, particularly the fleet evolution we checked, their ordering of planes, and also the efficiency because the turnover time in Edinburgh is particularly efficient. That's why we are very confident about the growth. What I just mentioned, not any detail of any contract, is that it's inflation-based along the next years. And the portfolio, I would dream to know.
The only thing is that we keep talking with governments anywhere. What we did, which was very different from the previous investor in the Dominican Republic, is that we invested in a cargo terminal for the country. That was very important for the country's development. And secondly, we invested really in the Central Plaza to rise the quality of service and the retail and the duty-free Santo Domingo. And this type of investment, which we are not mandatory, proved our commitment to the country.
So that's the way we do anywhere we apply. And so we have this potential anywhere in the world. I can mention the fact that we were identified with an 18-month increase of duration in Belgrade Airport, which is booming. And we are 40% above 2019 in Belgrade, and we got 18 months more at the end. And it was a little bit under the radar, but we got 30 years potential in Sihanoukville, in Cambodia. So we were compensated in Cambodia because we got a money allowance for Siem Reap. We will get one. It's now secured from Phnom Penh. And we will get more times in compensation for Sihanoukville. So typically, we discuss with all governments, and we got a very good deal in Cambodia in the leftover of the airports that were mentioned.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Graham Hunt. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks very much for the opportunity to ask the questions. Just two short ones. You confirmed that there weren't any early termination clauses on Northwest Parkway, but are there any revenue sharing or other clawback agreements in the contract for the grantor? And then second question, just on VINCI Concessions overall. You spoke about the portfolio that you've built up over the last 10 years or so. How do you think about disposals in the context of VINCI Concessions or portfolio management? Thank you.
Thank you for the question. Cool.
On Northwest Parkway, there's no clause. A clause on revenue share that, in our test case today, does not apply because we're far from triggering it.
Thank you. On the disposals, just how do you think about that?
As Christian and I said, apart from a particular case that would be to create more value selling but operationally developing the assets, we don't see the interest of this type of disposal today. We are building up in very limited markets, which are airports and highways, plus energy as a extra mention. So we are not in the position we were at the time of VINCI Park, for instance, where we really found there was a surge of airport value that we could create, what we did, by the way, and limited potential for car parks in city centers. That was very different. We still think that traffic on motorways, particularly what we mentioned in zones like Colorado and their traffic, are above GDP growth, and we concentrate on this type of assets for this reason.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Marcin Wojtal . Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good afternoon. Can you hear me well?
Yes. Yes, Martin.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Two quick questions. So firstly, on the Edinburgh Airport acquisition, do you have an option to increase your stake to more than 50%? Could you, at some point, even acquire a full 100% ownership of the asset? And would you be interested to do so over time? And my second question is on dividends that these new assets will distribute. You indicated that there will be distributions from Northwest Parkway and from the Edinburgh Airport. But what is going to be their dividend policies? Should we be using 100% payout on net income or 50% payout or some other formula, please, for dividends to VINCI Concessions? Thank you.
Olivier talked about the financial social policy, which is quite positive in the U.S. and U.K. But on the partnership, no, we don't intend to grow because, as I said, what is of high value for us is to go on with GIP, good governance, but also common assumptions to deliver. And we love what we think we've got a delivery program for VINCI, but also the same interest for GIP and VINCI's. So that's why we like these options where we can consolidate that we have 50.01%, and they will be along with us with the same objective. I will let Olivier answer about the dividends and the financials.
Whether it's on Edinburgh or Northwest Parkway, there are no accounting or legal constraints on cash distributions. The assumption that we are making is that any cash available is distributed to their shareholders, having in mind that we are going to be careful to maintain an investment-grade-like notation for both assets, whether they are noted today or not, graded today or not. We will be cautious with the financial structure, but any dollar or penny available will be distributed to the shareholders, as it is on Gatwick Airport already.
Last question.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Nicolas Mora . Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, thanks for the follow-up. I mean, quickly, you said that the Northwest Parkway was a stepping stone for expansion in the U.S. At the same time, you said you, looking at Greenfield, considering the high construction risk, you are not yet comfortable taking on multibillion-dollar projects. So what are the next steps to enable you to do that, to be in a position to bid for these multibillion-dollar Greenfield managed lanes projects, especially? Do you need to buy in construction companies? I mean, are there other companies like VINCI Construction, not to name it, in Australia, for example, do bid on multibillion-dollar managed lanes and manage that construction risk? I'm not quite sure why you can't do that yourself and control the risk. What else do you need right now?
So sorry if I wasn't listened to first. We did some construction risk projects, but without traffic risk in North Africa. We delivered the Ohio River Bridge between Kentucky and Indiana. That was a success with a partner. We delivered the Regina Bypass, which is, again, a P3, as we did before with a contractor, which shows we can deliver strong projects. First, we think it's the competition interest probably to slice them a little bit. And there are not so many competitors in the U.S. and Paris. There are not many U.S. ones in some recent days. And that's probably one of the reasons why there are not so many managed lanes today. We think that there would be more if there was a downsizing, a slicing of some projects. That's part of the message.
Then it depends on the states, which are very different, and also on the type of works. When I mentioned, as you know, if there are a lot of bridges and tunnels where high technicity is required and some of these required projects have this type of infrastructure, it's interesting. If it's just enlarging with earthworks, even if you have a subsidiary, usually, it's mostly local works. So yes, we look at greenfield projects, yellowfield, or brownfield in the same way. I was just mentioning that it was not very huge amounts of works that were necessarily the best projects for us to monitor and control. I don't think Skanska is so happy with LaGuardia projects, where these types of projects where you have multibillion with phases under operations are very complicated to get at fixed cost.
In this case, I'm not talking only for VINCI Concessions, but also for VINCI Construction. Whatever the company you have, I'm not sure if there are so many construction companies making a lot of money out of such complicated projects a long time.
To complete the answer of Nicolas, the experience we had in the past of PPP projects in North America, we like to share the construction risk with a local player, either American or Canadian or eventually European, with a longstanding presence in the U.S. or in Canada. We have been looking at greenfield opportunities, not managed lanes, but as Nicolas mentioned, specific technical infrastructure, but of a size which is considered as reasonable to us. Unfortunately, we were not competitive enough to win such projects. It was quite recent. It was in the last year.
So we are open to take construction risk, but we want, if possible, to share this risk with other players and have a good control over the global risk to be taken, which is not the case as far as we know so far on the big managed lane projects that we have been looking at. But we have clearly, Nicolas, we have today ongoing projects that I cannot quote because it's part of our internal strategy to talk to our contractors and some states, but we do. We are in the process. But on its own, we really like this project because no construction risk and good management of the dynamics of Colorado and Denver. There is also an availability of resources, of human resources, to take this type of risk.
In the case of our Spanish colleagues, I suppose that they have more resources available to allocate to U.S. projects than we have in VINCI because we have such a huge order book, especially in large projects, in large infrastructure projects, that we might not have enough technical and human resources to allocate to such big managed lane projects at this moment.
We are very open. We are between, I would say, what you know as Transurban Model, which is a little bit what we do with Denver, and through some contracting companies like us. We have a very wide angle to look at always if we can deliver. That's my final word about our way. We look at this not only with the figures, but our propensity to deliver: CapEx, OpEx, cost control that you consider in COVID, uncommercial revenues. And that's our way to deal with all these new deals, is to apply our methodology. We didn't change for the past decade.
Any final last one? I know you don't want to talk about equity IRs, but I'm still going to try. You said you're aiming for equity IRs above at least the group cost of equity. We've had some of the losers within the assets you've won, which have been talking down or talking up the price and criticizing you for the thing. Can you reassure us that the equity IRs on these deals are very high single-digit to low double-digit? Where is your cautious assumption taking you? And then I will shut up.
Apologies, this is the operator. It looks like the speaker line has disconnected. Please continue to stand by. The speaker line has reconnected. Please resume.
Yes, Nicolas, can you hear us?
Yes, yes. I think we're still here.
I disconnected the call. I'm not too confident. I'm sorry about that. Nicolas, the other Nicolas, will answer you.
Well, who is the question, Nicolas? So the question I thought you didn't want to answer it. Full stop. But the question was on equity IRs. I know you said you didn't really want to comment, but I think Christian said you're looking for deals above at least the VINCI Group cost of equity. And we've heard from competitors in these deals who've been basically bad-mouthing you for overpaying. How confident are you you are getting very high single-digit equity IRs or up to double-digit IR on these assets in the current environment?
First, we never do, as you know, adversity. So you should never listen to people who laughed and they wanted the deal. So first about them. Secondly, we probably deliver more than public companies in the airport without quoting anybody, as you know. So we check the figures about all the companies delivering. And it's natural not to have the same BP between competitors if you don't deliver the same. And first, yes, we confirm exactly what Christian told, that we are very consistent about our approach. And as you could see in the past, we deliver. And I would say we even de-risk in the case of Edinburgh because now we are completely in the U.K. market with two existing airports. We know exactly what we are doing.
I don't think we were not knowing in the case of Gatwick, but at least it was an additional risk at the time of Gatwick. We were not in London, and we were not in BRP, which we are now. So absolutely no comment more than we are above cost of equity, and we are probably above the figures we saw in some papers.
Again, Nicolas, we don't win any time that we look at a new project. In the last four or five years, we have missed a certain number of projects because we are not as competitive as you might think. In those cases, we won, but we could have lost. It depends not only on the theoretical IRR on the project. It depends mostly on the hypothesis that you take to build your business case, your business plan in terms of volume, traffic, passenger numbers, cost, effectiveness, revenue per passenger. So you have many factors, possibility to leverage. You have all the factors on which you can play to determine the IRR. And as you see, the hypothesis changed from one player to the other. Okay? Maybe that's the last question.
Okay. Thank you, everybody. So we will remain at your disposal should you have any follow-up questions. I'm sure you have lots. So in this regard, I'll stay for you and at least share with us.
Have a good evening.
Have a good evening. Bye-bye.
Bye.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.