Bonsoir. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for being here for this presentation of the annual results of Eiffage Group. I would also like to greet members of the board and of top management. After our publications on half-year results, in spite of the uncertainty caused by increased costs and the war in the Ukraine, the year 2022 ended well both in construction, in concessions and contracts. We have an increased revenue, improved profitability, increased improved momentum in our order book. We can see the end of 22 with an order book up 14% over the year. In the contract business was up both in France and the rest of Europe. In buildings per se, in France, we will be looking more specifically at new housing.
That will suffer from lower business on the part of property developers. By contrast, demand remains high because of stepped-up plans of renovation, the reconfiguration of buildings, new momentum in public buildings and industrial operations. This has enabled us to implement a number of solutions that address the issues of the environmental transition and offset, to some extent, the lower business in new housing. Regarding real estate, what has been driving business is the level of reservations that occur prior to the COVID crisis in some office building operations. Nonetheless, reservations of new housing in France is down for the second year running in France.
In line with the market, we only have 22,481 reservations to be compared with the 4,164 reservations in 2021 and 5,095 in 2019. The significant drop is the direct consequence of the low number of permits delivered, I mentioned this before, but also higher construction costs and a more challenging access to credit, especially for private individuals, but for investors as well. Traditional business of property and urban developers in Europe and significant operations for office buildings should help us compensate the decline in the new housing business. The latest success in Belgium was the beautiful project of the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense in Brussels.
Regarding road building, business remains good, even though the effect of inflation was quite significant and has hampered the budget capacities of many of our customers. On an equivalent revenue level, we are using less materials, as is shown by the lower volumes in our industrial business. Our teams were able to adjust to the situation remarkably. The road business, of course, remains at the service of mobility and is there to provide connectivity for regions in the country. Our capital expenditure and R&D with the completion of our green offer, combined with the work to accelerate the circular economy for our resources, have stepped up, there again, our own ecological transition.
In civil engineering over the past few years, we've decided to reinforce some of our know-how in certain fields of expertise: demolition, deconstruction, bridge and viaduct repair, maritime engineering, or indeed rail railroads. It is essentially to have our own know-how and be present on the ground to complete our project successfully. Of course, this business is mostly driven by large infrastructure projects. There are many of them in Europe. Our teams are now working on the HS2 motorway in the U.K., the A3 motorway in Germany, the E18 in Norway, the rail link between Lyon and Turin, the metro in Toulouse with lots number one and two that we recently won, and of course, the pursuit of the Grand Paris Express project.
Our teams have now completed boring the major portions of the Grand Paris Express tunnels. We were involved in these tunnels. As many as 10 TBMs were involved at any one time. On Lot 1 of Line 16, which is the largest of the Grand Paris Express tunnel project, the latest breakthrough occurred on January 24, 2023, so that completed the boring of some 19.6 kilometers of tunnels involving as many as six TBM and as many as 2,000 workers at peak time. In metal construction, with more than 20 years experience, we can leverage our significant position as one of the main European suppliers of transition parts for foundations or substations of offshore wind turbines.
For the year 2022 alone, we secured as many as nine contracts worth almost EUR 700 million in orders. Beyond wind power, Eiffage Métal has been active renovating buildings and bridges and viaducts. You have the railway station in Duisburg and the bridge in Lüdenscheid in Germany. You have them on the screen. Our know-how and industrial capacity in Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Poland, the U.K. on a remarkable driver to take advantage of the significant pent-up demand, especially in renewable energies. We have been able to build on that capacity in December with the acquisition of Momsteel in Portugal. Momsteel is a builder of metal structures and frames for solar power plants.
Eiffage Métal accounts for more than EUR 1 billion in revenue, including 70% in offshore wind turbines in 9 European countries and upwards of 2,700 employees. This, of course, is a significant differentiating factor for our group. Goyer, our facade builder, has been also very active on the ecological transition, working on two lines of action, the development of mixed facades involving wood, timber, and aluminum, office building renovation with two tall buildings being redeveloped in La Défense. Eiffage Énergie Systèmes is enjoying the highest level of growth with buoyant markets right at the heart of the ecological and digital transition, but also thanks to new energy and industrial sovereignty policies.
Business has been up 12% at EUR 5.3 billion, including 7% growth in France and upwards of 22% growth outside France, mostly in Europe, where Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, and Germany have been recording significant growth. The branch is positioned on the four great markets that are manufacturing industry, office building, infrastructure, and services provided to towns and local authorities. You have the four brands, respective brands up on the screen. Demand remains high on all these markets. More generally speaking, and over a long-term trend, it is, we find that the portion of technical lots taken up by the energy system branch has been growing both in building and public works.
Over and beyond organic growth, the branch has been pursuing its external growth strategy, acquiring small, smaller units, but enabling it to broaden its territorial coverage and strengthen its expertise in Europe. The year 2022 also enabled us to complete a more significant operation, the acquisition of SNEF Telecom, with about 1,000 employees distributed all over France. Altogether, as many as 11 operations were completed in 2022 with a full year revenue of more than EUR 300 million and 1,700 employees. The stepped up policy of external growth has contributed to upwards of 4% of our revenue. Growth is also driven by our own recognized position as a European leader for ground-based solar farms. That accounted for about 1 GW worth of capacity in 2022.
As we'll see in a moment, this is a significant growth drivers that has enabled us to make a headway on the value chain and become concession holders for renewable energies at Eiffage Concessions. We should also mention our involvement in the restoration of our historical heritage. Quite significant indeed, because the coast stone cutters of the construction branch and electricians of the energy systems branch have been involved in restoring the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Regarding motorway concessions in France, 2022 is the first year since 2020 where we have not been impacted by travel restrictions. Traffic has resumed growth, as you can see on the slide. We are pursuing capital expenditure and investment to reduce our carbon footprint on our motorways and promote new mobilities.
We met our commitments regarding the setting up of charging stations on 100% of our rest areas on motorways so as to meet our customers' expectations. Our teams continued with the development of the Fulli service areas on our motorway network. We've just completed a new capital expenditure plan worth EUR 410 million for APRR and AREA. That investment plan is a small scale example of the many possible investments that will be conducted as part of the accelerated ecological transition of French motorways, which is a key element of the decarbonization of mobility in line with a government policy.
That includes the development of car-sharing parking lots, the development of lanes reserved for carpools or public transportation, multimodal transportation interchanges, the development of free-flow toll gates, and the integration of 17 km of the A6 motorway south of Paris. That part of our capital expenditure, of course, give pride of place to biodiversity. Over and beyond our legacy concessions, namely APRR and AREA, our group also holds in its portfolio a number of assets that are gaining ground as the years go by. You have the A41 motorway between Annecy and Genève. This is not consolidated, we are the concession holders. We will be till the year 2060. You have the A65 motorway between Pau and Lourdes in southwest France. Southwest France until 2067.
The new A79 motorway between Mazamet in the Allier and Digoin in the Saône-et-Loire department. This is the first free-flow tollgate motorway inaugurated in France on November 4th, 2022. Of course, the Millau Viaduct, where the rolling areas was recently refurbished. In Germany, we're pursuing the work on the A3 motorway, which is the largest motorway PPP ever built in Germany. Regarding airports now, you have the Lille Airport and the Toulouse Airport, where traffic, well, remains below its 2019 level. Nonetheless, it's significantly picked up in 2022. Looking at Toulouse, in January, traffic was only 50% of its 2019 levels, but reached 85% of that level in December. We may get back to 2019 levels in two years' time.
We're confident, and we have resumed our investment program. We are starting the building of parking lots with solar panel rooftops, with an install capacity of 60 MW, including 50% for our own consumption. In railroads, we celebrated in 2022 the 5th anniversary of the high-speed lines between Brittany and Loire countries, which we will provide maintenance for till the year 2036. Regarding buildings now, the concession for the Ministry of Defense is called the Nové project. This is a significant contract for Eiffage Construction because between 2023 and 2030, this will generate as much as EUR 1.4 billion in housing renovation and building of new housing. This, of course, augurs well at a time when the building of new housing is at a standstill.
In 2022, we finalized the acquisition of 75% of the Sun'R Group, which is now become the platform for the development platform for renewable energy concessions. The development of hydropower and solar power plants should enable us to drive our capacity from 100 to 500 MW. This will enable us to decarbonize our own energy consumption, but the developments are being built on our own land, on the roadsides of motorways, but also on a land acquisition in those areas where we have a presence, just like we do for other concessions in the group. You have a picture here of the Boyé and Jugy solar power plants, which is located on the side of motorway A6.
Now, there's one highlight of the year, and that is, of course, our increased stake in Getlink. We purchased a block of EUR 1.2 billion worth of shares, and now with 18.79% of the capital, we are Getlink's main shareholder. Getlink being, of course, the concession holder for the Channel Tunnel until the year 2086. The outlook is to account for this stake on the equity method starting in Q2, 2023. Apart from our European presence and the balance between contract and concession, we have to follow two lines of action: human resources and our low carbon strategy. Regarding HR, human resources, our own attractiveness, our ability to draw talent in all social professional categories, is indispensable for our development in France and Europe.
We have to focus on four major challenges: training, recruitment, integration, and employee loyalty, as well as diversity. Of course, we're delighted to be number two in the Building and Public Works top 500 companies as seen by the employees and industry workers in a survey conducted by Capital magazine. As to APRR, it's number one in the good transportation and logistics department for the ninth year running. The second part of our strategy, the low carbon strategy, will definitely drive us for the coming decade. The real challenge is our ability to integrate and roll out the low- carbon and biodiversity strategy and leverage European policies that have an impact on all our business.
This is in fact a great growth opportunity and indeed a synergy accelerator because it means that all our businesses in the various countries where we do have a presence can work together and produce a differentiating offer. For the second year running, we have decided to increase the portion of our work eligible to the European strategy in 2022. That portion remained close to 50% as it was in 2021. Regarding alignment, we engaged in that exercise for the first time with recently published legislation. We found that the alignment rate was about 17%, mostly to do with renewable energies and railroad infrastructure. It will take some hindsight and industry benchmark to have a true assessment of that performance.
In the year 2022, again, we presented an application for our low- carbon strategy with SBTi expecting an answer, feedback, sometime this year. It is somewhat simplistic to summarize all these achievements in just a few figures, but nonetheless, these are some of the take-home messages, as it were, for the year 2022. 2022 turned out to be an outstanding year for the group in spite of the war in the Ukraine. All our teams remained tight-knit and well-mobilized to achieve that performance. Revenue for the first time became more than EUR 20 billion, up 8.5% compared to 2021, including 7.3% in organic growth. We managed to improve our profit margins in concessions.
Well, that was expected, but also in contract, in spite of the sudden resumption of in-inflation in 2020. This was not a foregone conclusion back in August. You may remember I had shown reservations at the time, but all in all, that means we were able to generate upwards of EUR 2.2 billion in current operating profit, up 15.3%. 15.3% is also the increase of the net profit attributable to the group, which now stands at EUR 896 million. Net debt remains under control. It's up only EUR 835 million, although we have invested as much as EUR 1.7 billion in growth assets, such as acquisitions and new concessions.
Finally, the order book ended up 14% at EUR 18.5 billion. Once again, this is a record high level in spite of increased activity. This provides excellent visibility and enables us to remain selective in choosing our deals. For the year 2023, on the strength of that order book, we are expecting growth in the contract business. In the concession business, we will be able to take advantage of a return to normal in airport traffic, the integration of Sun'R, the contribution of the A79 motorway in the full year, but also robust motorway traffic, which enables us to look forward to increased revenue as well.
In this context, we are looking forward to an increased current operating profit, both in the contract and the concession business. The resulting increase in net profit will also take advantage of the accounting for Getlink as an equity affiliate starting in Q2 2023. On the strength of that good performance, we will propose a dividend of EUR 3.6 per share at the next AGM for the year 2022. Regarding our financial resources, they are quite significant again, I'm very confident in our ability to pursue the group's growth, both in terms of organic and external growth. Thank you for your attention, I'll give the floor to Christian, who will give you a detailed presentation of the financial performance.
Good evening. Good evening, one and all. Coming back over our financial indicators, our revenues grew by 8.5%. Stronger growth in concessions as expected, because they benefited from a favorable base of comparison with 2021, whereas contracting already had come back to its pre-crisis level in 2021. Contracting still had very good momentum, +8.2% of which 6.7% organically for the reasons mentioned in the highlights. I won't come back to that. On the right, you can see that our growth engines are our locations and projects in Europe, +23.3%. A geographical area where we are gaining market share and where we have strong expertise in the renewable energy and transport infrastructure businesses. Looking at contracting on its own at EUR 17 billion in revenues. You can see on the right that international operations now account for 35% of our works revenues versus 32% in 2021, and 31% in 2019.
You can see that in line with the group strategy focusing on Europe. Our revenues in the rest of the world only accounts for 4% of the total. On page 35, you can see our main countries of business in Europe, and what you can take away from that is the strong momentum in Spain, over 30% growth. Also in Germany, as in Belgium, year after year, we are proving ourselves as a benchmark. In the UK, with high revenues, we are working on main projects, HS2 and also major offshore wind projects. Regarding our works margins, they are improving at 3.8% in spite of the inflationary push and tensions on supplies that we went through in 2022. In that way, we could have additional income of EUR 61 million.
In concessions, the extra airport traffic and motorway traffic in the first half of the year led to most of that increase in operating income. Overall, the increase in operating income is 15.3% for a group operating margin of 10.9%. Looking at the details for branches. In construction, revenues grew by 6.4%, standing slightly above, but only slightly above those of 2019, +2.4%. An uncommon situation compared to our other business lines that grew more sharply with more market growth compared to 2019. This is explained by the decline in new housing in France that was discussed already. The lump sum and non-adjustable character of most of our projects, which in an inflationary context, urges us to be more selective everywhere and sometimes in an exacerbated manner, as in Poland, for instance.
Our real estate reservations declined by 40%, 35% in France, without yet any significant effects on our revenues that only declined by 1% or on our margins. This year we had 7.6% in real estate margins, generating therefore EUR 83 million in operating income. With all of that, we could further improve the branch's profitability to 3.8%, notwithstanding the low growth that I was mentioning and the increase in construction costs. The A79, we've already widely discussed it. For each branch, I will give you an example of its contribution to the success of this project, because it's based on synergies between businesses and of course, on our very compact and tight organization that you know about, without which we couldn't have pulled off such a short construction time.
Eiffage Construction built the operation center of the motorway in Thiel with PV panels on the roof. In the infrastructure branch, business was slightly down in France, mostly due to the lower contribution of the Grand Paris Express. We had EUR 570 million in revenues for this operation versus EUR 716 in 2021, and also the end of the major wind farm in Saint-Nazaire. Business was booming in Europe on our main infrastructure project, HS2 in the UK, Norway, the A3 motorway in Germany, and more broadly in Germany at large. It's booming in offshore wind, growing by 12%, a segment that has very good visibility. All that explains the nearly 20% growth for revenues, the international operations of the branch, EUR 850 million higher than the 2019 level.
In roadworks, in spite of declining tonnage in industry, as you can see at the bottom right, revenues and margins prove to be fairly resilient, thanks to more private markets, urban development operations, and fine management of our entities. The operating margin of the branch was stable at 2.9%. Still talking about the A79, with the widening to four lanes of traffic for this road made by Eiffage Génie Civil and Eiffage Route without any traffic interruption with 1,200 people at peak. 57 new bridges and viaducts were built, such as the one that you can see, the Allier viaduct, 416 meters long, based on a metal structure produced and installed by Eiffage Métal. The energy systems branch posted strong growth of 12%.
You can see that this momentum's been steady for the last 5 years, excluding 2020, mostly for base business activity, so without any risks of ups and downs. The contribution from external growth was 4.1% of revenues in 2022. Because of acquisitions in 2021, roughly EUR 100 million worth of revenues in full year, and 2022 for roughly EUR 300 million of revenues of business in the full year. Our organization is in place to carry on with acquisitions as they crop up and also to integrate them. Our major European locations produced a lot of business with growth higher than the average growth of the branch in Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, and we ended the year with operating margin slightly up to 5.1%.
Still on the same motorway, the 88 km were equipped by Eiffage Énergie Systèmes with all the equipment that you can see here on screen, mostly for free-flow toll gates. Six countries were equipped with infrared cameras and sensors so that vehicles can be identified with their registration or their toll tags. Regarding APRR, beyond the traffic figures that are shown here compared to 2021, we were 1.9% above those of 2019, with a beneficial impact on margin, which more than offsets the dilutive impact of the ramp-up of the Fulli motorway services on the network and the integration, the recent integration of two months of operations of the young A79 motorway. Regarding financing, APRR's credit rating was raised to A, stable outlook by Fitch in November, and maintained at A-, stable outlook in June by S&P.
I remind you that APRR issued last June a bond of EUR 500 million maturing in 2029 for a rate of 1.875. Those were still the good old days. Since then, things have changed a little bit. The APRR team resumed operations of National Road 79 since the beginning of the works, contributing to its safety, and since then, they've been operating and maintaining the motorway since it's been opened. Here you've got the Bourbonnais motorway services operated under the Fulli brand. Regarding other motorway concession assets, here traffic was higher than 2019 for Millau, the A65, or in Senegal. That wasn't the case for airports. Their contribution to current operating income before goodwill impairment was mostly positive at EUR 23 million versus a EUR 1 million loss in 2021.
The higher contribution and the contribution from other assets and maintenance activities grew steadily to EUR 89 million versus EUR 84 million last year. For 2023, we can also rely on the effective start-up of the Nové contract, the first full year of operations of the A79 and contributions of Sun'R and Getlink, this one under the equity method. Here is the final outcome of the construction of the A79 with Eiffage Concessions as the main contractor for innovative and smooth infrastructure, meeting a lot of local expectations, and mobilizing many local players and stakeholders. Moving on to the financial statements. For the consolidated P&L, we've been through the operating indicators. Other operating proceeds and charges are similar to the 2021. The cost of net financial debt increased by EUR 25 million, of which EUR 20 million for the Millau viaduct.
The debt is fully indexed on inflation. There's fixed rate, but it's indexed on inflation and EUR 6 million on APRR and FRE. Other financial proceeds and costs have nothing to do with the cost of debt. The increase is EUR 33 million, mostly because of the financial discounting of asset renewal and maintenance provisions, and also the mark-to-market variation of the buyout options for the previous year or this year. The tax burden was EUR 491 million for an effective tax rate of 26.7% compared to the CIT rate in France, which is slightly lower of 25.8%. Net income group share was EUR 896 million. Earnings per share stood at EUR 9.46 per share. Regarding debt, you know this bridge chart.
EBITDA was higher by over EUR 300 million, we had a EUR 3 billion in 2019. The working capital requirements generated cash for EUR 223 million after the strong decline in WCR in 2020 and 2021 for a total of EUR 555 million. Taxes paid increased, logically. You can see the first operating flow in green, EUR 2.950 billion, a EUR 200 million increase on the previous year. Operating investment in works, in contracting increased in connection with the business, EUR 594 million. In concessions, it declined because of the end of the construction of the A79. The next flow is the reimbursement of PPPs paid as rent without any disposal proceeds this year.
That led to a total investment of EUR 1.2 billion, similar to 2021. In total, for these flows, free cash flow was solid at EUR 1.743 billion, up nearly EUR 200 million. Regarding the next flow in blue, acquisitions, we have the EUR 1.2 billion for Getlink and EUR 260 million for the main acquisitions of the year. I'll remind you, SNEF Telecom, Sun'R. We increased our presence in the Netherlands and other smaller operations, especially in energy in France. Variations without flows of funds were higher than the previous year. The discrepancy is EUR 300 million. We reduced the amount by EUR 100 million last year with PPP disposal. This year, we had EUR 200 million for the fair value adjustment of earn-outs on the year.
That increased financial debt and the project debt for Sun'R that we increased on our balance sheet and the debt, the indexation of the debt for the Millau viaduct, all these variations did not lead to any cash flow variation. The equity operations, the dividend paid out by Eiffage, nearly EUR 300 million to shareholders, and the dividend paid to APRR to its minority shareholders, and treasury share operations, including the increase in our treasury share level to 3.4% at the end of 2022 versus 2.4 at the end of 2021, and we ended the year with net debt at EUR 10 billion 166 million, an increase of EUR 835 million after an investment, growth investment of EUR 1.7 billion.
The acquisitions, to which I would add the end of construction cost of the A79. This debt is split in two blocks. You know that we are fond of this distinction. We have no recourse debt for concessions and debt and the cash of the holding company and contracting. No recourse debt for concessions in black increased by EUR 400 million, although the main concessions reduced their debt. You'll have the details on page 36. The A79 is now financed as non-recourse debt via APRR and no longer based on equity as during construction. The counterpart is in red.
The holding company and contracting benefited from this transfer of the A79, but it was, it financed all the acquisitions of the year that we mentioned, ending the year with an debt, treasury, cash at, nearly EUR 600 million. The order book, it was mentioned in its entirety by Benoît. Here you have details by branches. In contracting, it's stable, although, you know the situation new housing. The increase in the infrastructure branch at 17% is higher than what we anticipated a year ago, thanks to wind energy and transport infrastructure. In energy, the 25% increase, significant, is based on three pillars: the good momentum in local business, more large projects, although the branch is still highly selective in this respect, and the contribution from external growth. That's it for my overview of the figures. Now we will take your questions with Benoît. Thank you for your attention.
Good evening, Elodie Rall, JP Morgan. Thank you for this great presentation. A few questions, if you allow me, regarding your forecasts. First of all, regarding traffic on motorways. Your maybe not competitors, but peers think that traffic is going to stay flat. Is that what you're expecting too? Regarding the growth outlook for revenues and contracting by division, especially the impact of lower property starts, will that be visible in 2023 and 2024, 2025 and the other divisions? Regarding margins by division, they increased slightly. Should we expect a further increase in contracting margin, especially for energy at 5.1%? The question that crops up every year, are you happy with that level of margin?
For Getlink, well, you will account for your stake under the equity method. You're the largest shareholder. Where are you going from there? Is that also a level that you're comfortable with over the long term? Or is there an underlying strategy that is more complex? Is there anything you could share with us? I'll stop here. Thank you.
Thank you. Elodie, maybe Philippe on traffic.
Good evening. Traditionally, we do not give any guidance on traffic, but the idea of flat plus seems imaginable today. You know, after 15 years, regarding road traffic, I'm still very cautious on initial traffic forecasts because realities almost never align with initial forecasts. I would say that we'll see clearer at the end of Q1.
Maybe a few words by Olivier.
Well, for contracting, what wasn't said is that the Cigelog project is not part of the order book because we can't account for it under the IFRS standard, both at EUR 300 million per year that will bring until 2028, 2030. That's not in the order book. I'm not anticipating any decline in revenues, at least in the short term. Well, maybe for the rest, for Energy Systems, you saw that the order book is quite well filled. We'll also have the switch to the full year business for the acquisitions made this year. Mechanically, there will be an increase in revenues. That's also a business with very short projects. Price increases for some equipment. On the various business lines.
I think Elodie wanted to talk about margins. I'd like to skip to the next question, but.
For the various contributions by business line and by branch, of course, it's very different. For the infrastructure branch, I'll have the same items as on civil engineering and metal. We can maintain or at least even improve our margins, but visibility for roadworks is lower, so there could be a more, slightly more negative impact on roadworks. Overall, I think that we should be flat or flat plus on the infrastructure branch. For contracting, now we need to be resilient. The solidity of contracting is fairly good, it's offsetting a natural decline that will come from the contribution from property, although margins are still good. That will be applied to declining volumes.
We are confident about our ability to maintain margins, thanks to the team's selectivity. On the energy system branch, I would disappoint you if I told you that we shouldn't be able to keep increasing it a bit.
Your last question is related to Getlink. We haven't changed our opinion. We are happy to have had this opportunity to have been able to increase our stake, so now we are the biggest shareholder. We hope to be involved in the governance and to account for it under the equity method. In the mid to long term, that will be purely opportunistic. We are quite open to increasing our stake a little bit. Of course, raising it to 25% or 30% in the mid to long term would be quite good, but it will only be related to share price opportunities, because the position that we have right now is quite comfortable for us.
I already shared it before. The aim is not at all for Getlink to be an over-concentrated asset that would reconcentrate the positioning of concessions in a single asset, so it's a tunnel in a single place. Although APRR assets are highly concentrated in our concessions, that's an asset that covers thousands of kilometers, so it's much more diversified in a way over the territory than Getlink would be. We're happy with our current position, but we're absolutely not opposed to increasing it. We could increase it to 25-30%, not more. Can you question Elodie.
I also have a few questions of my own. Sun'R, you mentioned a positive contribution for this year. Could we have an order of magnitude of the revenue and the target margin? Sun'R right now is an operation for your own operations, decarbonized. For Sun'R, could you consider concessions for third parties like LaSalle does? For roadwork, do you confirm that the profit margin came down in 2022, or was it stable? I'm not quite sure. Number three, if you look at the cost of procurement and revenue, you have a 2.5% delta. You have revenue up 8.5% and costs up 6.5%. How is this going to evolve over time, especially because on certain supply chains, there are challenges right now. Can you give us details on that?
On Sun'R, we, there may be a misunderstanding there. What we said was that for the year 2023, we will be able to take in Sun'R's revenues, so that will, of course, add to the concession revenue, but there's no significant contribution this year. Sun'R is a development platform, for the part, even for the part that is already there, a significant portion is reinvested because, of course, we still need to. To invest to ensure our own growth. It's not that as if we were doing this for ourselves. Once we within the five or six megawatt that the company needs for itself, there's no need to dispose of these assets. Once we get beyond that stage, for instance, that in Eiffage Immobilier, we don't have land, but we find land, we develop projects, and we sell the projects.
Right now, we need 500 or 600 MW for our own consumption. Eventually, this will depend on the state of the market. It may be more profitable to sell back the assets and develop others. We develop we get value throughout the chain, the value chain, because we are builders, operators, and we provide maintenance, or we could decide to keep the assets under a concession. When I said to Sun'R own use, but we also sell power outside. There's no separation. Of course, fundamentally, we need to develop the accelerate the growth of that business. Whether we sell electricity to ourselves or to third parties, I mean the fundamental issue is can we cover our own needs? If we generate our own capacity, that is, of course, a key point. The profit margins on roads. No wonder you didn't quite get the numbers because we didn't give the numbers.
Numbers are up, which means that we were able to. Even though volumes are down, they bring in more than the roadwork costs. We were able to beat inflation. Volumes are down. The fact that profit margins on roads are up means that we have been profitable where we ought to be. We've been selective in such a way as to ensure that the businesses were profitable. Somebody's speaking without a microphone. We can't hear the question. The answer is, well, we'll. The cost for 2023, we have less visibility than elsewhere. That's why we were cautious regarding volumes.
We don't have much visibility for 2023, it is because we were driving this business very carefully almost day to day. That's what enabled us to achieve the good performance. This is very early days indeed to have an idea of the various cost components of the road business that may go up and down. What we managed to, what we succeeded in doing the past year, we should be able to do this year. The main thing here is that there were significant effects due to inflation. We were able to address that, to cope with that, but inflation is still there, and inflation is still part of the change.
The inflation issues for 2023 will be just as significant as they were in 2022, which is why we have to remain conservative. We were able to show, to demonstrate that we were able to address this efficiently.
Good evening, Nicolas Mora from Morgan Stanley. I had a question about the cash position and M&A, what you do with the cash in 2023. You, there were as many as 11 acquisitions for energy and systems, some Getlinks, some Sun'R, Sun'R. Where do you stand in priorities? Could you be buying yet more acquisitions? There were EUR 200 million in 2021, EUR 300 million in 2022. Might you invest as much as EUR 500 million in 2023? Do we have an idea of the budget you have for M&A for, I mean, not just 2023, but 2024, 2025? Any idea of just how much you might be spending on acquisitions?
Well, on the contract side, we are focusing mostly on energy systems, as you were able to see. This didn't stop us from acquiring Momsteel in Portugal to complete our manufacturing capacity for Eiffage Métal. We're focusing mostly on energy systems. This is the conversation in France. We have the managerial capacity, we have territorial coverage, and most of the potential acquisitions stem directly from the people we work with in the areas where we have a presence, people.
Businesses that can actually complete our own network, and that is what drives our acquisition of a small units over time. With the bigger acquisitions like SNEF Telecom, of course, we had to decide on that opportunity at branch level. If you go outside France, in Europe, a few years back in the Netherlands, we acquired a company called Kropman. It had national coverage, but it was not comprehensive. It didn't cover all the businesses either. We have become better acquainted now. That partnership works well, and we do have the managerial capacity that will enable us to conduct bolt-on operations. Indeed, two such acquisitions were conducted this year, and more may well follow suit.
In the Netherlands, we do have the managerial capacity that provides, as it were, the bridgehead that comes with organization values and operations. Belgium, likewise, there were a number of units we were able to bring together under the same bridgehead, they organized with the four main markets. There, we were able to conduct a few operations, a few acquisitions, a few years after the Netherlands, but we did more or less the same thing. In Spain, we have significant managerial capacity, but if you have a 30% organic growth, we cannot engage in external growth because organic growth is taking up so much of our time.
In the air conditioning business, we acquired a small company that generates electricity, and so the two companies can together provide all the services. That will enable us to grow and make a small, further small acquisitions. The one country where we haven't really looked is Germany, because at that stage, we neither have a territorial coverage or business coverage, so we have a sample of four or five very successful companies in their own territories. What we need there is a larger, more significant acquisition, properly integrated. The next step would be to do the same as we did in other European countries.
Here, that would be the idea, to be able to generate what we managed to do in other countries, to do it in Germany. Until such time as we have the wherewithal to complete these operations, we need to find the right size, the right values, the people we can work with effectively, and then well, add what already works to that, fully integrate, and then once that's completed, we can step further. Until such time as that is done, we cannot go faster than that. For other businesses, civil engineering, roadworks, metal construction, we can forge ahead.
For Eiffage Énergie Systèmes, we're talking about EUR 250 million, and we're not very consolidated. The two main players generate EUR 2.5 billion, and that is much less than what the main players in France are doing. Yet, the potential capacity is much bigger in Germany. Of course, there's potential there, and Well, we'll have to be working on this, but we have to do things in the right order.
Sur, Sun'R, en sous-réserve.
On Sun'R, I mean, depends on the permits we receive, but CapEx could be EUR 30 million-EUR 50 million, EUR 150 million in 2024, and upwards of EUR 200 million in 2025. That is subject to authorizations and such like. We would like to keep the debt for such projects and keep the cash for the concessions.
Je continue. I'll carry on then. Historically, you recycled a bit of capital in PPPs as you went along. Maybe there will be something in 2023 about BPL or not. A question mark there. Also on Energy Systems, 10 years ago, you were aiming for a 5% margin. Now the industry has consolidated more. Top line is dynamic. What can you aim for in the midterm? Some of your competitors are at 7%. Others in Europe that are still restructuring, they're aiming for 6% or 7% margin. There, I wanted to know whether the trees could grow as high as the sky.
Well, trees can't grow as high as the sky. I'll remind you that we're talking about EBIT and not EBITDA. Some of our competitors are talking about EBITDA, so that can have some impact. We haven't changed our minds. I think that 5%. When we aimed for 5%, people always told us that it wouldn't be stupid to be at 5.5%. If you compare the different geographies, there are geographies where companies are more expensive, but they have standard market margins that are higher, as in the U.S. or elsewhere. If you're s ticking to European markets on which we operate, the best in class are clearly still ahead of us, and there aren't that many.
There's just one regarding EBIT. Logically, we should be able to go for 5.5, and if volumes are still pushing us, we should aim for 5.5%-6%. If there are some in the room that are listening to us. Yes, you are quite right, Nicola. Regarding BPL, I think that it's connected to the fact that we had the possibility of reducing our stake contractually after a number of years of good operations. Yes, it would be potentially possible, but now in the short run, I think that we are quite happy with BPL, and we don't necessarily see the point in selling this asset.
It's still a major reference for us. Of course, it would be possible if it was necessary, but I think that as we speak, our positioning, it's a good idea to keep it. Unfortunately, the speaker's microphone shut off, so the interpreter was not able to hear. Hello again. I'll carry on maybe three additional questions on the A79. Could you give us some outlook regarding revenues and margins that we can expect? 2023 is the first full year, and we don't have a lot of financial items about it, so it would be useful. Secondly, maybe an update on your view on a potential extension of motorways and a potential green CapEx plan. Where do we stand? Thirdly, on the airport strategy, we haven't really talked a lot about it after the 2020 acquisitions or 2019.
Is it no longer the focus or quite the contrary now that things are normalizing, we could expect to see the group grow more widely in this sector? Cécile, maybe you can start with the last question.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'll start with the airport strategy. We are looking at airports, except that we are still sticking to our home territories, so the possibilities are fairly limited. At this stage, we are looking at the Cayenne Airport, for which there's a call for tenders. On the A79? Well, maybe I'll also disappoint you, but it's a bit too early to make a reliable forecast about 2023, especially as it's just been commissioned. It was commissioned on the November 4th, 2022.
What we can say is that traffic is consistent with our initial forecasts and pre-works traffic, so 9,000-10,000 vehicles a day. You need to understand that it's a specific motorway because HGVs account for over 40% of traffic, 42% to date, and nearly 80% of receipts. This is a very specific motorway compared to what you can see on the rest of the APRR network or other AREA concessions. We're expecting EUR 30 million in revenues for the full year and an impact which is still not very significant for APRR at this stage. This is what we can say for the A79. As regards the major investment plan, we are quite happy with the fact that we could close the investment plan that Benoît talked about earlier, EUR 410 million.
It's a very good showcase for what we could deploy at a much larger scale. Now we need to convince the government of the relevance of this big motorway decarbonization plan that could include the deployment, the mainstream development of free-flow that could have a major impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, and also the full reconfiguration of motorway services to make room for electric vehicles. We can see that the light vehicle market is moving towards EVs, and we'll have to fully rethink our motorway services. We'll now need to reposition fuels in a different way, and we'll need to have hubs of electric recharges and recharge and not just stations. It's something we can think about for the next few years.
In the short term, I can't see any possibilities, but it's still something, a possibility for the mid to long term.
Two additional questions as far as I'm concerned to continue the conversation. First, regarding the strategy. In the past, SAE was in the U.S., but Eiffage exited. Could we imagine that Eiffage makes a comeback, or is it difficult? That's, in fact, most of my question.
To be quite honest, I was tempted to ask Olivier Berthelot to answer because he was in the U.S. when he was a young engineer at SAE. We haven't changed our minds. Our positioning is clear. Value creation for me in our business is about being in a lasting presence in some geographical locations. Ideally, we could have both concessions and all contracting business lines because when t here's 90% of the group's headcounts working in contracting and 10% in concessions. We are attractive in, on a given territory when we have the full-fledged contracting offering. We stand to gain a lot more when we provide those business lines that are not yet present in countries where we operate.
We could improve our geographical coverage in these countries, because when the Energy Systems branch is growing on the full Spanish territory, it's also doing favors to the whole group on this territory because it's making it more attractive. It's less risky, it's more attractive, it's more consistent. In terms of concessions, I've told you already, I think that the main risk for a concession holder is political risk. We hear about that every day.
Fundamentally, the good thing is to have concessions where you already operate as a big employer with good corporate social responsibility, and the ecosystem is fundamental. Talking about the U.S., well, first we need to split the East Coast and the West Coast. In the near future, to make someone dream of working for Eiffage in the U.S., we would need to be quite significant in size compared to the rest of the group. The contribution for the group, I'm not sure about the relevance, and the risk is very high. We have a real asset in consolidating what we are, being both in concessions and the full-fledged contracting offering in the countries that we've selected. Where we are lucky now, you've seen that with Christian, 96% of the group's revenues are generated in Europe.
When you're talking about the environmental transition, when you're talking about the European Taxonomy, the whole corpus is European now, and all of our countries and business lines in the various countries are being brought under the same fundamental corpus. To add a bit of geopolitics, I think that the world is more and more focusing on continents rather than globalization. I strongly believe that it makes sense for the group. Well, maybe when Europe is too small for us, it may make sense, but not for the moment. In line with Elodie's question regarding a plan, are negotiations at a standstill or are they still continuing? Moreover, in for this major plan, maybe the French Government and Brussels could agree to lengthening of the concessions or not, or is it premature?
Well, the only thing I can tell you is that what we were negotiating was not a major plan. It was our EUR 410 million plan. The only thing that's interesting for me, what could be in a major plan in the future is what's already in this plan, but at a smaller scale today. It's only when there was a strong interest on the part of the government and local authorities for this plan to make sense and for it to be seen through. There's no issue with Brussels, because overall, Europe has shown that it was quite able to approve plans in other countries as it did in France in the past. It's about political choices, but it's not up to us. What can we do? Well, we know what we can do.
I'm not talking about electrification of HGV transport because right now we don't have a technical solution yet. Everything that we put in the current plan, we've got a technical solution for it, and we already have a sample of what we could do on our whole network. It's up to the government to choose what it wants to do and according to what schedule. I think that the ball's not in our court. It's not a negotiation matter. It's just that they know what we can do. We've just proven it again with this new plan that was put in place, now it remains to be seen what the government is going to choose.
Maybe a final question, again to address vexing issues on contract, especially the construction of in the housing business, you still have a positive outlook because you said that in 2023, you expect stable revenue. How can you make up... I mean, you have Nové, that's the military, the defense PPP. Is there any kind of pickup in industrial building? There's energy renovation in the PPPs n ot 2023, but maybe 2024, 2025.
Regarding the public works, you know that for local authorities, you have hospitals and prisons. There's quite a bit to build. There are contracts out there, and we're talking about EUR 250 million-EUR 300 million. That is not insignificant in our portfolio. In industrial projects, there has been a significant rebound since the end of the COVID pandemic. There's been no slowdown. For public works, hospitals and prisons, and on the private side, industrial, and indeed the energy renovation of social housing, that is a booming business because we're looking at twice as much revenue as we were doing a year ago on that business.
One thing is for sure, if you look at this year's business, both the energy systems, but this may involve civil engineering and building people. We are in the coal side for electricity, the mega factory in Douvrin, pharmaceutical in Toulouse. Industrial sovereignty, pharmaceutical sovereignty, energy sovereignty, I mean, these are projects that translate into cash for our own business. So for our building people, our civil engineering people, our energy systems people. This is really driving our business. Guillaume can add something to that on future businesses of the Greater Paris, the GPE project. I mean, not every day do we get these significant calls for tenders.
I'll give you a general answer. On the Grand Paris Project, well, the final breakthrough on Line 16 was done on January 16th. There's the 15 south and the 16 lots that we're working, that we're completing. We've been at it for two and a half years. For two and a half years, our people have been working on the next lots. There are four major lots in design and build, still at the tender stage. Well, it's the first round of offers. We had a firm commitment last year for the southwest lot. In 2023, so this year, we will be binding offers for west, northwest and south-southeast. These are, well, the three, lots that should, see their completion in or at least their closing in 2023 and 2024. For the years after that will be significant volumes.
Right. Any further questions? Well, I see none, so thank you all, for being here tonight.