+ 5.4%. In Concession, revenue also increased by 3% on a like-for-like basis to EUR 2.6 billion. On the other hand, revenue of Construction declined by 5%, although at a high level of EUR 6.9 billion, but at constant exchange rates, - 3.3%. I will give you more granularity by business line later in this presentation. The group order intake at VINCI Energies, Cobra IS, and VINCI Construction are up 5% versus Q1 2025 at EUR 17.4 billion. Order intakes are very significantly higher than the revenue of the period, which total EUR 13.6 billion for these three businesses. As a consequence, the order book, the consolidated order book, reached a new all-time high of EUR 75 billion at the end of March, up 4% year-on-year, up 7% versus December 2025.
It represents almost 15 months of average activity, which give the group visibility and serenity to maintain its selective approach in terms of new order intake. International made up 71% of the order book. Germany accounts for 20%. Regarding the financial position, we are serene as well. The net financial debt of the group at the end of March amounted to EUR 19.8 billion, improving by EUR 1.4 billion year-on-year. Despite the seasonal rise of the working capital requirement in the first quarter, which was in line with the one of last year, debt increased only slightly from the 2024 end figure, - EUR 730 million. If we correct the share buy-back, -EUR 450 million. VINCI maintained a very high level of liquidity, unchanged relative to the end of 2024, with a managed net debt of EUR 15.5 billion and EUR 6.5 billion of revolving credit facility, which has a maturity, I think, 2031.
As a result, with such a solid financial position, VINCI is well prepared to go through the current economic uncertainties in the world. Let's now have a closer look at the main businesses. Concessions. Revenue in the Concession business amounted to EUR 2.6 billion, up 1.4% on an actual basis, but up 3% on a like-for-like basis after adjusting for adverse currency, but also change of scope effects. These figures show Concessions resilient in a turbulent environment. VINCI Airports. VINCI Airports revenue slightly below EUR 1 billion, down 1.6% on an actual basis, but up 3.5% like-for-like. When we adjust, in particular, the perimeter effect, which is linked to the airport of Phnom Penh in Cambodia, whose Concession management contract ended last September for VINCI Airports. We now operate the new airport, Techo Airport, but it's under a management contract, not a Concession contract anymore.
You have already seen the traffic figures published last week with many airports in Europe, Portugal, Edinburgh, Belgrade, Budapest, and in Latin America, Mexico, Dominican Republic, and Brazil, achieving solid growth. Despite disruption caused by the situation in the Middle East, total traffic in the Q1 2026 rose +1.5% year-on-year, thanks to a good geographic diversification of our network. Actually, the two airports which were mostly affected in the Q1 was Gatwick, with traffic impacted by the Middle East crisis, -3.6%, and Kansai, impacted essentially by tensions with China, -6%. VINCI Autoroutes Q1 revenue EUR 1.4 billion, up +0.6%. The total traffic was down -1.4%, light vehicles -1.9%, due partly to the adverse weather condition at the start of the year, blockade in January by the farmers, and also comparison effect with the previous year, when we benefited in 2025 from strikes at the SNCF.
If we correct those three non-recurring effects, traffic was down around 1% in the first quarter. This - 1% being largely due to the consequences of the crisis in the Middle East at the end of February and in March. At the same time, truck traffic posted a firm growth of 1.3% on VINCI Autoroutes. Now, VINCI Highways. VINCI Highways Q1 revenue saw a strong increase of 53%, but on a like-for-like basis, + 23% to nearly EUR 160 million. This growth is driven by the addition of Brazilian highways to the portfolio. I remind you that Entrevias is now fully consolidated in our accounts since October 25, which is a consequence of a change in the governance of the company. In addition, VINCI Highways took over operation under a new Concession of Via Cristais in Brazil, also in March 2025. Energy solutions, i.e., VINCI Energies and Cobra IS.
Revenue was up 5% to EUR 6.9 billion, of which 68% came from outside France. EUR 6.9 billion is as much as the revenue of Construction this quarter, which demonstrates that VINCI Energies business operates in very buoyant markets and also has become the main drivers of VINCI growth. These markets are shifting towards electrification, growth for AI and data centers, digitalization of industrial processes and digitalization of building management, and obviously defense and sovereignty challenges. The current geopolitical events are likely to continue sustaining these major trends, and particularly the acceleration of electrification. For VINCI Energies, Q1 revenue was EUR 5 billion, + 4% on an actual basis, 1% like-for-like. Outside France business, which represents 57% of the total, revenue rose by almost 4%, buoyed by recent acquisitions.
In Germany, the largest market after France for VINCI Energies, revenue increased by almost 10%, which takes into account, obviously, the impact of the acquisition that we closed last year, particularly Zimmer & Hälbig, R+S Group, and [Kontron] Group. In France, the road works market, revenue was up almost 5% on an actual basis, 3% like-for-like. The order intake rose by 7% to EUR 6.8 billion, which is appreciably higher than revenue in Q1. This order intake hit a new rolling 12-month record of EUR 22.8 billion, which reflects a very good momentum for order intake, both in France and abroad. As a result, order book amounted to EUR 20.2 billion, +12% year-on-year and +16% versus December, which represents 11 months of average business activity.
Finally, for VINCI Energies, note that VINCI Energies, as we already explained many times, is our acquisition and integration machine, remain active again in 2026 on the M&A front, having completed 8 acquisitions in the quarter, representing a cumulative annual revenue of around EUR 80 million, mainly in the Netherlands and in the U.S. Now, Cobra IS. Cobra IS revenue was up 6.7% to EUR 1.9 billion. Most of this growth has been driven by flow business, which saw a very dynamic trend this quarter, particularly in Spain. Flow business accounts for 58% of the total revenue of Cobra IS. On the other hand, revenue in the EPC business posted a more moderate increase, which reflects phasing effects, completion of several projects in Brazil, transmission lines and renewable production, and ramp-up of new projects in Germany and Australia.
Projects which are absolutely strategic for the energy sovereignty of these countries. Order intake of Cobra IS surged by 68% to EUR 2.2 billion. It was also significantly higher than Cobra's revenue in the period. Thus, the order book of Cobra amounted to a very high level of EUR 18.6 billion, up 9% year-on-year, up 3% versus the end of December 2025. A very high level that represents more than two years of average activity of Cobra. Now, Construction. Construction, which includes VINCI Construction and VINCI Immobilier revenue, remained at the high level of EUR 6.9 billion. VINCI Construction, on its side, Q1 revenue EUR 6.8 billion, which represent a limited decline of 3.3% at constant exchange rate, but 5.3% on a natural basis because of the exchange rate impact, which I commented before. This decrease was due to lower revenue from major projects because essentially of the phasing of the projects.
Also, some difficult weather conditions in Central Europe. On the other hand, business level, we are quite firm in the U.K., in Australia and New Zealand, in Africa, and also in civil engineering in France. Order intake fell by 5% to EUR 8.4 billion, which remains appreciably higher than VINCI Construction revenue during the period. As a result, VINCI Construction order book ended the quarter at EUR 36 billion, up 5% versus the level of the order book at the end of last year, representing almost 14 months of average activity. Finally, VINCI Immobilier revenue Q1 amounted to EUR 218 million, down 7%, but the number of reservations in France rose by 17% to almost 820 housing units. In conclusion. After this solid start of the year, VINCI keeps unchanged its 2026 guidance, which we presented in February.
Obviously, it is not yet possible to provide now a reliable estimate of the potential impact that may arise from the current crisis in the Middle East, the magnitude and the duration of which is unknown at present. This impact will be assessed and commented upon, if necessary, in due course. However, looking beyond the economic disruption that VINCI as any other economic entity may face in the near term, recent events strengthen the group's firm belief that the need for investment in essential infrastructure development of electrification and digitalization, in particular, will continue to increase, driven by sovereignty challenges in the world's various regions.
Accordingly, the group will be able to leverage its expertise and its multi-local entrepreneurial, very efficient, and reactive organization in order to take part in these major trends, which will continue to drive its growth in the medium and long term. Thank you for your attention, and we are now ready to take your questions.
Thank you, dear participants. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please stand by while we compile the queuing roster. This will take a few moments. Now we're going to take our first question. It comes from the line of Elodie Rall from JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi. Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my question. I'll just ask two questions. On Construction, to what extent was the revenue impacted by bad weather? What do you see as an exit rate, for example, at the end of the quarter? And would you expect to catch up some of that maybe miss in Q2? And my second question is on the airport division. Clearly, there is concern about jet fuel supply and shortages, in particular in the U.K. What's the situation in your U.K. airports, in particular Gatwick and Edinburgh? Thank you.
If we take the example about Construction and weather condition of the business we make, for instance, in Europe, which is essentially Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, we are talking of a revenue during the period of something around EUR 400 million for this division of this Construction. The decrease of the activity in this region was something around 6%. It's not a very material effect at the scale of VINCI. On the other hand, for instance, if we look at VINCI Energies in the U.S., VINCI Energies benefited from the bad weather condition because there were some storm which destroyed some energy infrastructure, which in fact compensated some other negative effects that we might have experienced due to weather conditions. Overall, I would say it's not that material for the group. Some minus in the Construction, some plus in the energy business.
Now, for answering your question about the fuel issues in the airports business. Obviously, it's an issue that we are monitoring, the fuel availability. We monitor this issue very closely, as you can imagine, across all our countries, and we are present in, if you talk only about airports in 14 countries, but overall in 100 countries in our different business lines, because it's not an issue only for airports, fuel is an issue for all businesses. Regarding specifically airports, VINCI Airports management is monitoring the situation on a daily basis with their local teams and with their partners across their networks. To date, even though some airlines, and I saw some articles in the press or in some analyst reports, some airlines are reorganizing their networks by cutting unprofitable routes for short-term gain.
Our airports do not consider themselves to be at risk at present, and this includes our airports in the U.K., Edinburgh, Gatwick, and Belfast. Obviously, we will continue to monitor the situation and assess the impact of this crisis, and in due time, if necessary, we will comment on them. The next time we will report our traffic will be, I think, in May, 19th of May, the April traffic of airports and motorways as well in France. That said, we are fortunate to have a geographically diversified network. Actually, the Middle East, if we look at the activity our airports have with the Middle East, it's relatively small, very small. We are talking of a few percent. As a result, this diversification should help to mitigate any potential negative impact overall.
I cannot be more specific for the time being, but again, we will monitor the evolution of the situation on a daily basis, and if necessary, we will report on the consequences it might have on our activities.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of Eric Lemarié from CIC CIB. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes. Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I've got two on Germany, actually. You mentioned that 20% of your order book regards Germany, and I was wondering if you could remind us on your views regarding the German plan, the German stimulus plan in terms of timing and potential impact on VINCI business in Germany. Could you maybe give us the organic growth figures for Germany in energy solution in Q1? You mentioned 10% including scope. Maybe you can give us the organic growth, if possible. Thank you. Are you there? Hello?
No.
Sorry.
Eric, just give us a moment, sir. I believe the speakers will be ready just in a moment.
Thank you.
Hello, Eric. We were looking into our data. We have so many books and figures that it takes some time to kind of. Well, what is more easy to answer is the first question, because actually we don't have more information than the market about the progress, the potential progress in Germany with the stimulus package. The situation overall in the world at present is so disturbed that we lack a bit of perspective on this matter. No news for the time being regarding the stimulus package. On the evolution in Germany of the business in general, in the energy sector. I'll answer the question about energy. In energy, we have a strong growth in the Cobra businesses.
Cobra is involved both in the, as you know, the offshore platforms, HVDC, for their German customer, the utility companies, but they also work on a regasification terminal in the north of the country. On this side, VINCI Energies is down due essentially to the ICT business, and investment in the fiber networks and so on, partially offset by the industrial businesses.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of Dario Maglione from BNP Paribas. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi, yeah, I have actually four quick ones, hopefully. Going through the contracting division, if I look at VINCI Energies, revenue was up around 4% in Q1, organic 1.4%. If I understood correctly, you don't think there was a big negative impact from bad weather. Is this Q1, is this growth rate representative of the rest of 2026? Specifically the same question for Cobra. We had growth of revenue Q1 around 7%. Is this representative for the rest of the year? Going back to the question that Elodie asked on Construction, which was down 5% in Q1 for revenue, should revenue rebound in Q2, so be positive in Q2? Final question on road traffic in France on the highways.
If you can comment on your view of what could be the impact of higher fuel prices, would you expect quite a large negative elasticity or a small one? Thanks.
Well, we have to look into our data to answer your question, so we take a bit of time.
Sure.
Well. Yes. Regarding what we can expect in the near future for the energy businesses and for Construction, we don't give indication on a quarterly basis about our guidances. We have said that the guidance we gave in February was kept unchanged. That's true, particularly for those businesses. For energy solution, we said mid to high single-digit revenue growth. You can interpret it as you like, but it means we don't anticipate major changes for the rest of the year versus the beginning of the year. It's more or less in line with the guidance, what we have done in the first quarter. In Construction, we are a bit behind, but we haven't changed the guidance, and the guidance says excluding Forex effect, revenue likely to be similar. Similar doesn't mean necessarily exactly similar. It can be a bit down, a bit up, but in line, we say.
Now, for the highways in France. The highways in France, definitely there is elasticity between the traffic evolution and the fuel prices. We always said that. Now the question is about the time it takes for the people to get accustomed to the new level of prices. When the change is brutal, which is exactly what happened after the crisis in the Middle East, it has a negative impact. There is strong elasticity, but a certain elasticity, compared to a situation in which the fuel price could evolve progressively. At the moment when the price stabilizes, the situation recovers normally. It's the experience we had in the past. Clearly in this particular case, as I said, the increase of price was brutal after the war started, and it impacted our traffic in March.
Now whether this will continue or not in the future, again, I don't have a crystal ball. All will depend on how long will this crisis last, whether a solution will be found by the Americans and the Iranians, and whether the people finally. The road, the car is one of the few space of liberty for people in France like in other countries. After a while, people get accustomed to the new level of prices of the fuel and the traffic recovers. I don't know when this will happen. I've not a crystal ball. It's a little bit like the frog in the kettle. If you put a frog in a kettle, if temperature goes up progressively, the frog doesn't realize that it's getting burned. If you put the frog in a kettle which is already boiling, then the frog is not so happy.
It's a good analogy. Pardon, Christian, did you disclose the traffic in March?
Hold on. I'm not comparing the frogs with the French drivers. It was just an illustration. Okay?
Yeah. Sorry, I was asking if you disclosed the traffic in March.
We did disclose the traffic in March, Dario. It's in a footnote. It's the traffic March 2026 versus March 2025 is down 1.4%, of which light vehicle traffic minus 2.6%, if I'm correct, and heavy trucks strongly up by 3.6%.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The 2% decrease for light vehicles we believe is largely due to the brutal fuel price increase.
Thank you, Dario. Now we'll go and take our next question. The question comes to line of Luis Prieto from Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Good afternoon, evening. Thanks a lot for taking our questions. I had a couple of them, if I may. The first one is regarding your mention in the statement that despite the seasonal rise in working capital requirements in the first quarter, debt increased only slightly from 2025 end figure. I know it's way too early to talk about this in the year, but does this suggest somewhat better-than-expected working capital performance? Most importantly for me, in this context, could you remind us of what working capital figure is included in your up to EUR 6 billion free cash flow guidance for the full year? The second question is just capital allocation very briefly. You have taken an important step into the Indian market with Safeway.
I would like to know if you're looking to further expand into this market or you're, for the time being, okay with this. Hello?
Luis, regarding your first question, I think I already gave the information in my speech. The order of magnitude of the change in working capital in the Q1 was very similar to the one of last year, first quarter, in the area of EUR 500 million negative, which is not really much at the scale of VINCI. I think we also said when we released the result in February, that in our guidance of EUR 6 billion, it took into account a further improvement in working capital for the full year of something around EUR 1 billion. It's a hypothesis, obviously. We don't really know what will be the working capital at the end of December, but it's the assumption we made in our guidance for free cash flow.
Regarding India?
India. Very nice country. India, I remind you that we have not closed yet the deal. It doesn't depend on us. It depends first on the National Highways Authority of India. We think, we hope that this deal should be closed before the year-end, and we have no other deal in India in the pipe at present. Let's start with this one, and then we'll see what we do.
Makes sense. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Now we're going to take our next question, and it comes to the line of José Arroyas from Santander. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes, I just have one question. It's on the Construction business. In February, you announced the acquisition of Fletcher in New Zealand. The revenue generation of this entity is about EUR 600 million. I was wondering if this was already consolidated in the Q1 and if it had any effect on revenues and orders. Thank you.
Hola, José Manuel. No, Fletcher is not included in those figures since the closing has not been done yet. We are, I think, about to do it very soon, but it's not done yet, so it's not included in our figures.
Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question, and it comes to the line of Nicolas Mora from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yes, good evening, guys. Just a couple from me on the order intake. Could you shed a bit of light on the order intake for Cobra in the quarter? It was already very strong in the fourth quarter last year, driven by the flow business, and it seems to be again quite strong on flow business in Q1. That comes after quite a few quarters of a bit of a cleanup in the flow business, if I remember, especially on Latam. Are you now comfortable to actually re-accelerate there and the flow business be the driver? That would be the first question. Second question, same on the order intake, VINCI Energies. It's been soft for most of 2024. Suddenly we have a step-up this quarter. Did you have anything relevant or ad hoc or one-off in the first quarter, especially the order in Benin? I think you announced yesterday.
Could that be a reason why suddenly the order intake is re-accelerating? Thanks for the color.
Hello, Nicolas. Order intake for the energy solution business. It happened that in the two instances, Cobra and VINCI Energies, the flow business order intake has gone up a few % during the quarter for both entities. The major growth come from orders above, let's say, EUR 5 million, which means nothing, because you might have some orders of a few dozens of million and some other orders much bigger. You have a list, I think, in the press release, in the footnotes, about some examples that we gave for VINCI Energies, in particular, some data centers in Asia, some battery storage system in Germany, Belgium, and United Kingdom, a PPP project in Germany, et cetera. Also a nuclear project in Brazil for the Navy. For Cobra, we mentioned also some order intake in the electrolyzer area.
To make it simple, flow business, normal growth rate, I would say, according to GDP and inflation, and some more projects of a more significant size for both entities, which relates to the need for more digitization infrastructures and also some energy infrastructures in a variety of countries.
All right. Thank you very much. If I may, just on VINCI Energies, when we look at the growth in international, which is a bit flattish, we know it's been quite volatile. Some good quarters, some bad quarters, especially last year. Any outside of Germany, anything else to highlight? Just mostly weather, and we're going to go back to modest growth?
Nicolas, it means nothing to summarize the situation of the non-French revenue of VINCI Energies by saying flattish, because we have a large number of countries which don't perform the same way. Germany, for the reason I mentioned before, is slightly down on a like-for-like. Netherlands is up. Belgium is significantly up. Scandinavia is slightly down. U.K. as well. In Central Europe, you have all type of situations. It's really a wide variety of evolutions. Spain is very dynamic, not only for Cobra, but also for VINCI Energies. Cobra is good, et cetera. The U.S. is up for the storm effect I mentioned before. As a result of all that, it's more or less flattish. It's a coincidence, obviously, but it's by chance, I would say. It could have been the other way around in one sense or in the other.
That's why, when you look at VINCI Energies, it's important to look globally at the revenue evolution, not just like-for-like, because we permanently add up some new companies, not generally very big, very large, but which makes sense to have a more efficient network and a denser network in the area where we feel more comfortable, which is essentially Europe, for VINCI Energies, Europe, North America, and also Far East Asia with Australia and New Zealand, and Singapore.
Thank you, Nicolas. Dear participants, as a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one. Dear speakers, there are no further questions for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Christian Labeyrie, for any closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you very much for listening to me and to my colleagues. If you need more follow-up information, don't hesitate to call Gregoire and his colleagues, and they will be more than pleased to try to answer. Thank you, and see you soon.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.