Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome and thank you for joining the HOCHTIEF full year 2022 results call. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touchtone telephone. Please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mike Pinkney. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon to everyone, and thank you for joining this HOCHTIEF 2022 results call. I'm Mike Pinkney, Head of corporate strategy, and I'm here with our CEO, Juan Santamaria, our CFO, Peter Sassenfeld, as well as our Head of Capital Markets, Tobias Loskamp, and other colleagues from the senior management team of HOCHTIEF. We're, of course, as always, looking forward to your questions. To kick off, our CEO will run us through the key aspects of our performance during the last year. Juan, all yours.
Thank you, Mike and team, good afternoon to everyone and thanks for joining us today. HOCHTIEF delivered a robust performance in 2022, notwithstanding the challenges of the current macroeconomic environment. Solid growth in revenues and profits was accompanied by an outstanding cash flow performance and a further expansion of our order book, particularly in high-tech infrastructure. HOCHTIEF also achieved a substantial simplification of the group's corporate structure following the successful buyout of the minorities of our Australian subsidiary, CIMIC. Now moving on to the numbers. Sales increased by 23% in 2022 to EUR 26.2 billion and were 12% higher in FX adjusted terms. Operational net profits rose by 15% to EUR 522 million, with nominal net profit of EUR 482 million compared with EUR 208 million in 2021.
All divisions contributed to the growth in operational net profits. HOCHTIEF's cash flow generation was very strong in underlying and nominal terms. Underlying cash flow from operating activities pre-factoring was EUR 1.2 billion and EUR 1.05 billion on a nominal basis. We ended 2022 with a solid net cash position of over EUR 350 million, even after the significant investments made during the year. In particular, the CIMIC buyout and the MACA investment. At the end of last year, the group's order book stood at over EUR 51 billion and is up by EUR 3 billion or 6% since December 2021. Following a solid performance in 2022 across the group, we will be proposing a dividend of EUR 4 per share, more than double the previous year's level.
The payout of 65% of net profit is in line with our dividend policy. Significant year-on-year dividend per share increase is backed by our strong cash flow performance. For 2023, our guidance is for an operational net profit of between EUR 510 million and EUR 550 million. On the next slide, we can see the group's outstanding cash flow performance in more detail. Underlying cash flow from operating activities pre-factoring in 2022 of EUR 1.2 billion was EUR 453 million higher year-on-year, driven by strong cash conversion across the group. Net operating CapEx ramped up to EUR 164 million in 2022 full year due to increased purchases of job custom founding equipment at CIMIC for major projects.
Underlying free cash flow from operations in the 12-month period stands at a high level of over EUR 1 billion. On slide six, we can look at the cash development from a balance sheet perspective. HOCHTIEF ended the year with a net cash position of EUR 354 million. Adjusting for the strategic investments of EUR 534 million in CIMIC, net of the HOCHTIEF capital increase, and for the EUR 126 million for MACA, the balance sheet would show a net cash position of just over EUR 1 billion. A EUR 460 million increase compared with December 2021. If we further adjust for other non-operational effects as well as dividends distributed, we can see a EUR 750 million increase year-on-year, as shown in the chart.
The next two slides show more detail on the development of the group's orders. Our order book stands at EUR 51.4 billion and is up by EUR 3 billion since December 2021. Over half of our backlog, and this is 54%, is located in North America, with a further 38% in the Asia Pacific region and 8% in Europe. New orders of EUR 30 billion are 9% higher year on year. In the presentation, you can find more details on the solid performance in 2022 of our divisions. Now I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about our strategy, which is shown on slides 13 to 15. Our group's strategy is to further strengthen HOCHTIEF's position on its core markets and to pursue selective growth opportunities. Particularly, in the rapidly expanding areas of high tech, energy transition, sustainable infrastructure.
In parallel, we continue to focus on further de-risking our order book, where lower risk contracts now account for over 80% of the total. In order to further develop our expertise and know-how in these high-growth markets, we have been enhancing our engineering competencies, continued our in-house development of new innovative digital systems, and strengthened our logistics know-how. This has been complemented by several bolt-on acquisitions. On the supply chain and logistics front, for example, we're transforming traditional procurement processes by increasing visibility for clients throughout increasingly complex supply chains. We're actively engaging industry-wide R&D networks with research, science, and industry partners to drive innovation in our industry. Additional project-driven innovation is executed at an operating company level, and this strategic management of innovation is led by Nexplore, which operates development and research centers in the proximity of HOCHTIEF's main subsidiaries.
Looking globally and understanding the shorter-term macroeconomic challenges, several long-term mega trends related to climate change, digitization, demographics, urbanization, and industrial relocation are driving a strong investment growth in specific areas, where HOCHTIEF is well-positioned as a key player and can deliver the best possible solutions for private and public clients across the value chain. By harnessing our strong existing infrastructure skill set and local presence in key developed markets, we can maximize these growth opportunities by establishing a leading presence in the value chain of these high-growth industries, which we are well-positioned to support. Let me give you some examples of the new orders we have secured in energy transition, digital infrastructure, new mobility, and healthcare biopharma over the last 12 months.
First, the build-out of renewable energy and infrastructure needed for the energy transition in all our key markets, including large-scale electric vehicle battery manufacturing capacity, is a priority. A third joint venture is building a multi-billion electric vehicle battery plant for Honda and LG Energy in Ohio. Annual production capacity will be some 40 GW hours by the end of 2025. The facility will produce electric vehicles batteries used to power vehicles from early 2026. The battery recycling JV project, worth up to $1 billion in Kentucky, has also been awarded to a construction management company, a joint venture who is managing the construction of a manufacturing facility for Ascend Elements. The first-of-its-kind plant will use the client's patented synthesis process to manufacture sustainable engineered battery materials from recycled batteries while lowering waste and carbon emissions.
Once completed, the plant will create up to 400 jobs and produce enough material annually to power more than 250,000 electric vehicles. In Australia, CIMIC UGL has been appointed by Neoen to install a high voltage infrastructure and a Tesla supply battery energy storage system in Queensland alongside a solar farm at the same site, thus allowing stored energy to be transmitted into the electricity network from early 2025. UGL is also constructing a hydrogen-ready power generation plant in New South Wales, Australia. Pacific Partnerships has acquired the development right for Glenrowan Solar Farm in Northern Victoria, a large-scale solar farm to be developed by CIMIC. The company will develop, invest in, and manage the solar farm with UGL to undertake construction, operations, and maintenance.
CIMIC has a strong history of delivering leading-edge renewable energy projects, through Pacific, continues to actively drive our presence in emission-free renewable energy sector. The 245 hectares solar farm will have an installed capacity of up to 130 megawatts and generate enough electricity to power approximately 45,000 Australian homes. Back here in Germany, HOCHTIEF secured a joint venture contract for the construction of a battery cell factory valued at approx EUR 240 million. We're also very well-placed in the digital infrastructure sector. With the rollout of high-tech infrastructure in clean 5G and its applicability in state-of-the-art facilities is rapidly expanding. HOCHTIEF is a strongly positioned in the market for data centers with an order book at the end of last year worth over EUR 4 billion.
Some of our recent project wins include several data center project wins for Turner in Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Texas, and Nebraska, with projects being managed by a team of around 1,000 specialists. Leighton Asia is also very active in the data center market and recently won a contract to build a data center campus for a multinational technology corporation, the details of which are confidential. Overall, in 2022, the group secured digital infrastructure contracts worth over EUR 3 billion or around 10% of HOCHTIEF's total new orders.
The transformation of traditional transportation infrastructure to new sustainable mobility concept is another area of growth. Some of our important project wins in the last 12 months are: through UGL, a subsidiary of CIMIC, and through the U-Go Mobility joint venture, we were awarded a multi-year contract to operate the backbone for a connected, sustainable, and intermodal transport network in Sydney. The contract, which will commence July 2023, is for around seven years and will provide revenue to UGL of approximately AUD 250 million. UGL, CPB, and Pacific, in addition, are part of the Canberra Light Rail PPP consortium that is currently enhancing Canberra's world-class light rail system with new wireless light rail vehicles, along with upgrades to the existing fleet over a 20-year period.
UGL is also a member of the MTM joint venture, which operates Melbourne's metropolitan rail network, and at the same time, part of the MTS consortium, which operates the Sydney Metro Northwest. Talking about healthcare and biopharma. This is another strong area for the group, driven by both demographics, aging population, and technological advances. In the fast-growing biopharma segment, Turner will build a $725 million pharmaceutical plant in Colorado producing oligonucleotides, which help treat cancer and cardiovascular disease. New healthcare projects include the Boston Children's Hospital, which Turner is building in Massachusetts, the new emergency department project at the University of Rochester in New York, and a radiation oncology treatment center in California. In Australia, CPB has been selected for the early contractor involvement phase for the development of Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
CPB has also been selected by the New South Wales government to deliver the main works construction on the Nepean Hospital Development Stage II. The package of works is part of the government's AUD 1 billion expansion and upgrade of the hospital. Our market-leading PPP capabilities are being applied in our core activities with complementary opportunities in these high-growth areas. An active evaluation of capital allocation options is a key ingredient of the group's strategy to support HOCHTIEF's diversification, simplification, and growth, as well as our expertise in high-tech infrastructure. Last year, we completed 2 important strategic M&A acquisitions with the CIMIC minority buyout and the MACA investment. In addition, several important bolt-on acquisitions were executed by CIMIC as part of this strategy. Environmental, social, and governance, ESG, is another strategic priority for the management.
In 2022, HOCHTIEF published its sustainability plan 2025, with a commitment to be climate neutral by 2045. This plan comprises several targets, including net zero for Scope 1 emissions by 2038, with a near-term objective to reduce emissions by 20% by 2025 versus 2019. Net zero Scope 2 target by 2038, with a 25% reduction by 2025. For Scope 3 indirect emissions, net zero by 2045. In addition, in terms of the circular economy perspective, we aim to achieve waste recycling of at least 80% by 2025, and to continue reducing thereafter with zero waste to landfill by 2045. We have recently announced that as of 2023, we will implement diversity management action plans for all projects in environmentally sensitive areas.
Furthermore, we continue to focus on social and governance objectives, including increasing the proportion of women in senior management and fostering diversity in the workplace. To wrap up, the group delivered solid 2022 results with an outstanding cash conversion performance. We can therefore propose a significant increase to our dividend to EUR 4 per share, backed by our solid balance sheet, a firm order book, and being well positioned in our core markets. As well as the rapidly expanding sectors of high tech, energy transition, and sustainable infrastructure, we see a positive outlook for HOCHTIEF in 2023 and beyond. Thank you very much to everyone for listening. Now I welcome your questions. Ready to take questions, operator. Thank you.
Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you are using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selection. Anyone with a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Victor Acitores from Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Thank you, good afternoon, everyone. I have three questions, if I may. The first one will be on the resource, let's say part of the business of CIMIC from PS. If you can give us some color about the strategy and outlook of that division. This is the first one. The second one, Juan, is that if you can give some color about the cash conversion evolution for Leighton Asia, okay? Is that if there is still room to improve in 2023? If we have reached the level of 100% already or not we have the room to improve? This is the second one. The third one will be related with the backdrop of high interest rates.
If there's any strategy in the group in order to improve the cash debt structure currently on the back of the high outstanding debt that you have at the holding level. Also relevant net cash at Americas. Thank you in advance.
Yeah, thank you, Victor. Let me start with Resources Marketing in CIMIC. We've been quite focused on first taking all the advantage of the growth in the resources market, which continues to boom, but also diversify out of coal. In that sense, we've made a lot of progress in other metals. If you look, for example, at 2022, we won the four-year contract in Mount Holland, which is a lithium mine in Western Australia. That continues expanding our capacity in lithium, which is currently quite important, and we're positioning as a key player. But also we won the Iron Bridge Magnetite project in Western Australia. We won a greenfield copper operations in South Australia. We continue expanding in copper in Chile.
We won in Canada, the mine designed for the gold project through Sedgman. We continue to expand our capabilities in our metals together with iron ore. In addition to that, the MAC acquisition in that sense has been very, very strategic because not only has diversified us in the Western Australia region, which we were not as important, but also is giving us a significant expertise in the iron ore market, which is a future, not only a present, but also key for the future and in gold as well. We are very, very much comfortable with the strategy and quite optimistic in the future. I also believe that there will be new projects in the U.S., and hopefully we can announce some of that throughout the year.
In terms of the cash conversion of Leighton Asia , I always say the same, and I thought that 2022 was going to be the time where a lot of these reconciliations would come to an end. In Latin Asia, we don't have losses, right? Our projects do not lose any money. They have good margins in general. Now I'm talking about Hong Kong, Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, India, et cetera. The challenge is that in Hong Kong, all our projects continues to flatline because we are not getting the final reconciliation for the clients. That will have to reverse. It's not that we are spending the cash and that cash flow for the last three years have been out the door and it's not coming.
It will come, we need to make sure that we agree with the clients. We are not even in arbitrations on the projects. We are still in reconciliation phase or mediation, depending on the project. Hopefully we should be able to get agreement soon. Again, I thought that 2022 would be one of those years and it hasn't been. I believe that in 2023 we should start getting some of that back. Related to the third high interest rates, if you look at our margins, probably the high interest rate has been the variable that has affected the most to us.
You go through the regions, especially in the Asia Pacific region, just at CIMIC level, we saw an increase of AUD 20 million on interest rates, which is substantial. It was affected, in addition, to the bad weather, was affected as well by the high interest rates. Yes, when it came to Germany, FX has been able to net some of that increase in the interest rates. Of course, that's the reality that we're facing. What do we expect in 2023? I hope, first that the sales continue to grow. Our backlog is very healthy and I believe that we can continue increasing operational margins and that will offset the growth in the interest rates.
That would be the first part of my answer. The second part of my answer is more related about our debt structure. I mean, a lot of our debt is long term. Also we've been very careful, especially as we were navigating through COVID, to have a lot of liquidity, right? We preferred to have liquidity than retain debt. We are going to evaluate if, I mean, putting aside the long-term debt, we're going to continue evaluating if this is the right approach or as interest rates continue growing, if we need to change our strategy.
Super. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from Luis Prieto from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I have 2, if I may. The first one is there's a sharp increase in order intake in Americas and Asia Pacific in the last part of the year. You just reviewed a number of opportunities that seem quite encouraging in terms of your target niches, et cetera. Well, my question would be why the relatively conservative outlook? If I'm doing my math correctly, you're aiming for -2% to +5% growth in operating and profit year-over-year, which again sounds a bit subdued. The second question is a very short one. Should we expect at any point in time this year a buyback? Thank you.
Yes, I mean, when you look at the guidance on our expectations for 23 when it comes to margins, we're reflecting the increase in interest cost, which is something that we have to monitor. That's basically driving the flat message that we're giving potentially in Asia Pacific, but in HOCHTIEF, we're increasing in my opinion materially the guidance in Americas, and also in Americas. That would be my read. When it comes to the buyback, I will continue looking at options. I mean, right now we're not thinking on a specific buyback, but we will analyze throughout the year our best options for capital allocation.
Thanks a lot, Juan.
The next question comes from Marcin Wojtal from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. I had a few questions. The first one is on HOCHTIEF Americas' profitability, which was down again about 60 basis points year-on-year. Obviously, I appreciate you have strong revenue growth, but my question is really, is there a deterioration in profitability that is underlying or it's a reflection of strong revenue growth? Perhaps you are just accounting very, very conservatively in the U.S.? My question number two, could you maybe give some color on the operational performance of Thiess? Is there actually growth in Thiess on a year-over-year, year-on-year basis in 2022?
lastly, if I may, is there any update on the potential sale of your stake in Ventia in Australia? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Marcin. Starting with the first one. First of all, if you look at HOCHTIEF Americas over the last years have always moved between 2.1%-2.5% on a PBT basis. Number one, and we're still in that range. Number two, there's a component. I mean, HOCHTIEF Americas, especially through Turner, is growing significantly in terms of order book, and sales are going to continue increasing. There's a kind of a project mix, because typically what comes from Turner is driving lower margins from than what is coming from Flatiron.
The other component, and it really changes every year, is that from a, from a PBT perspective, it does really changes whether Turner is in equity account of JVs or is consolidating on a proportional basis the projects. This year has been a one of those years in which there's a lot of proportional consolidation, so therefore margins come down. Otherwise from equity accounting, you wouldn't be taking the revenue, but you are taking the profit. There's a little bit of that. However, and the most important thing in terms of outlook, a lot of the projects that we're winning right now, we're just in the initial phases through engineering with very low margins. That's also contributing. As we start building our new work in hand, I think that those margins can increase.
I'm not only not concerned, on the contrary, I think that it has a very positive outlook. Talking about TECE. TECE, from an EBIT perspective, an EBITDA perspective is performing very, very well and has been performing very well over the last years. With the exception of this year and 2022, and a little of 2021 because of the bad weather. Okay? It's not that material. The challenge with TECE comes at the financial interest. Because our agreement with Elliot, we are junior to them, so they get the first EUR 180, and we get the rest. Any effect of interest rates come 100% to us. That's what is affecting the performance in our NPAT as we consolidate the NPAT of TECE through our P&L.
The third question, which is about Ventia. yeah, I mean, we have announced in the, in the past, we are, I mean, we are clearly looking at options to divest our 32% from Ventia. We're not in a hurry. I mean, we're not in a hurry. We could do it in 2023, 2024, whenever we see a window.
Thank you so much.
Thanks to you.
The next question comes from Graham Hunt from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much for the questions. Just two from me. I think you mentioned in your prepared remarks that lower risk contracts are accounting for over 80% of the total now. I don't know if you could give some color how that breaks down regionally and also whether that's a level you're now comfortable with or you see further to go there. Second question, just on Abertis. Could you remind us of this, how you view that strategically within the HOCHTIEF Group today, whether there's any update on that? Thanks very much.
Sorry, Graham, can you repeat the second question?
Just on, Abertis and its strategic role within, HOCHTIEF, whether you have any updated view on that, for us. Thank you.
Okay. Starting with the, with the low risk. If we move to HOCHTIEF, North Americas, Turner is 100% cost reversible alliance, progressive design and target cost, low risk. Flatiron is transitioning very, very fast into the low risk. We are, I mean, we are pretty close to 100%. The last 2 jobs that were won by Flatiron announced a few days ago, North Carolina. Those are the only design build that Flatiron has been securing in the last year. That's because they are very good jobs. North Carolina is a very good market for Flatiron. They perform very, very well, and they've been working on previous similar jobs in the same area. I mean, they are design build, but we're quite comfortable with that.
If we move to Europe, in general, all what we're doing right now in Europe on the civil space, our schedule rates, unit prices, no design build. Except on the building side. At the building side, we are very comfortable with the risk profile on the jobs we are taking. That accounts for a relatively small percentage of-
Less than 10%.
Of the platform. We are talking about less than 10%. If we move into Asia Pacific, UGL these, all of those are in the case of these scheduled rates, in the case of UGL service contracts, low risk, 100% both. In Latin Asia, only those scheduled rates and contract only. CPB is probably around the 70/30. All together, that's when we are talking about 80%, 20%. I wanted to go through the detail because one thing is to talk about low risk, high risk. I mean, typically what we do is design build EPC versus the rest. Okay? Which are cost reimbursable, alliance, et cetera. That doesn't mean that we're uncomfortable with the design build. We are being very careful when we look at those jobs.
We move into the Abertis question. From a 20% Abertis in HOCHTIEF, it's important, and right now there's no perspective to change that, if that was the purpose of your question. If we're talking about Abertis in general from a HOCHTIEF perspective or ACS perspective, that 20% that we have, I always say the same, that Abertis is a very important asset for us, but we need to make sure that together with our partners, we continue investing and we continue revitalizing Abertis. It's, to us, it's binary. We're committed to it, and we believe that our partners are committed to it. We believe that we can have a very good Abertis. It's important that we focus on that.
That's very helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from Augustin Cendre from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I just had a follow-up question actually on the project risks. Given that we've seen numerous one-offs in the past few years coming from projects in Asia Pacific and Europe, could you elaborate a bit more on the risk you see on current projects? Here what I'm trying to understand is whether we can expect the end of one-offs going forward, at least with such a scale. Thank you.
Okay. Well, I mentioned before, the difference between the percentage of low risk projects versus the rest of the jobs. In our group risk report, I'm not sure you have it in front of you right now. Basically, we talk about the C470, which is a job of Flatiron Colorado. We talk about Champlain Bridge, Texas Harbor Bridge. We talk about the Adelaide Hospital, and we talk about the Rastatt project in Germany. In all those jobs, except Texas Harbor Bridge, are finished some time ago. They are in arbitrations. I want to believe that the level of provisions we have in books are enough. In any case, all those jobs can only mean cash for us, right? In the worst case.
Of course, we believe that our provisions are okay. When it comes to the Texas Harbor Bridge, last year, we've been working with the client, I'm sure you've been following the news. We got the green light for the construction, the permits. We make sure that we were driving the project in the right way, to Texas' satisfaction. Right now, I mean, we need to negotiate the terms of an agreement. Again, I want to believe that we have the right provisions on the job for that. Again, that, depending on that, will have potentially or not have an effect in TML or positive or negative.
I, again, I don't think that those effects should be negative. We're comfortable with the level of provisions we have. Is there any other risk that I can share right now in the group? No. I am quite comfortable with the level of risk. The only ones that require the provisions that I mentioned are the ones I just described.
Okay. Thank you very much.
We have a follow-up question from Luis Prieto from Kepler Cheuvreux.
Hi. Hi again, Luis Prieto. I had a follow-up question on the outlook query that I had before. Basically, what I would like to know is to what extent is Peace affecting or what's the contribution of Peace to that outlook for this year?
Are you expecting because of the interest rate pressure a drop in the NPAT contribution or what is your take?
Yeah. I was looking right now the figures of this in 2021. In 2021, this contributed to a EUR 65 million NPAT NPAT basis.
Euros.
euros, sorry. EUR 65 million. In 2022, EUR 58 million, right? That will grow obviously because this acquired MACA. We're not expecting that weather on 2023. How much? I can give you a range. I mean, that's more or less the level that we're talking about. In reality, I mean, if we are getting that NPAT, it means that obviously you need to operate on NPAT basis under $180 million, which is what Elliot is getting. As I said before, this impact is mainly because of interest rates.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Dario Maglione from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi. Just a couple of questions from me. One is on the free cash flow and cash flow conversion for next year. Do you expect any cash outflow from working capital as you move to lower these contracts in the U.S. or in Asia Pacific? The second question on if you can give us a bit of guidance for the operating margins in America and Asia Pac 2023. Thanks.
Okay. Starting with the cash flow. When we were moving from design build projects, CPC into alliances and risk, there was a significant unwinding. We've seen that over the last years. The transition, I would say that is almost completed, right? I mean, there could be some unwinding of some of the old projects of Flatiron. They're good, okay? Again, nothing that I'm concerned, nothing that it's not gonna be offset by far by the new sales and the new contracts, which are going to provide very stable cash flows. That on one hand. In terms of the margins, I would be...
If it was not because of the interest rates, I would be very comfortable to talk about an increase in margins because as we get into the high tech business, those margins are higher than in the civil works. The more we get new projects on the high tech, on the energy transition, on the new mobility, those, especially in the high tech and the energy transition, those margins are higher. The only thing that I want to be cautious, and that's why it's driving guidance, is uncertainty around interest rates.
Okay. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star key followed by one. We have another follow-up question from Graham Hunt from Jefferies.
Thanks for taking the follow-up. Just on, I wanted to come back to the new opportunities that you discussed in high-tech infrastructure. Actually just, wondered if you could provide any more color around your own capacity and capability to deliver these projects. Are you seeing a pressure to invest to bring in capability to deliver these high-tech projects? Is there labor supply tightness which is affecting potentially your own capacity to deliver them? I'm just trying to understand, as the business shifts towards these more complex projects, how does that impact the way you invest internally in talent and your own workforce? Thanks.
Thank you. First of all, I mean, in order to be able to deliver the projects that we are winning right now, batteries, data centers, et cetera, et cetera, I mean, the biopharma, we've been doing a lot of bolt-on acquisitions, small ones throughout the years that have allowed us to verticalize some of these specialties or expertise to be able to come up with these projects. In addition to that, we have more than 1,000 people in the organization for these projects from different specialties, industrial engineers, et cetera, besides our traditional civil workforce.
In addition, we built two new logistics hubs, one in the US through Source Blue and one in Asia, to make sure that we were able to manage the supply chain, which is key for all of this. We had to integrate mechanical integration capabilities and on the data center, software integration capabilities. All of this in the first phase, we've been able to achieve, thanks to all the reasons I just mentioned. Now let's talk about the future, okay? The future, we're thinking about hydrogen. The future, we're thinking about semiconductors. We're thinking on the next part of what's coming post data center, which is the future of the 5G infrastructure. That's more complex. I mean, there's. We're exploring all different options.
Right now we do have alliances in all those fields or creating alliances in all those fields, important ones. In hydrogen sector, we are looking at 2 plants in Australia. We're looking at 1 plant in Chile, and we do have partners for those. We're looking in the semiconductor areas at different hubs in the U.S. through alliances. We're trying to speak to our current clients on the data centers, especially the big hikes, to see what's coming in the future. If we wanted to grow internally, I do believe that there's a need for inorganic growth in those areas. It's difficult to grow organically, or it's difficult to internalize small companies to achieve what we've been able to achieve on the battery sector or the data center. Not sure if I answered your question.
No, that's helpful. Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time, and I hand back to Mike Pinkney for closing comments.
Okay. Thanks very much, operators. Thanks to everyone for joining us. I'll just hand you back to Juan for closing remarks.
Thanks for your time, for your interest and questions. Of course, if you have any follow-up questions, we are available at your service. Thanks again.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.