Ferrovial, a Dutch company with Spanish origins, has signaled a strategic shift to deepen its operations in the United States, a move disclosed during an investor and analyst briefing following the release of the first-quarter results. The group confirmed plans to hold meetings with U.S. investors to boost trading activity on the Nasdaq, where the company has recently begun listing. The Chief Financial Officer, Ignacio del Pino, outlined the intent to schedule several investor encounters in the United States this year to lift the firm’s liquidity on the New York market. Ferrovial underscored that the American market will be its main focus in the coming years and clarified that there were no new developments regarding the sale of Heathrow airport.
“There are no updates at this moment about Heathrow”, said Ferrovial’s corporate CFO, Ernesto López, during the analyst briefing. He referred to the November agreement that aimed to divest a 25% stake in the principal London airport and which encountered delays after other shareholders in the parent company (FGP Topco) exercised their accompanying rights. In the initial agreement announced in November, Ardian, the private equity fund, and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia had agreed to acquire 15% and 10%, respectively, of Ferrovial’s stake in FGP Topco. López emphasized that traffic growth forecasts for the London airport remain a focal point for the company.
López also announced a bid for a project valued up to 2.2 billion euros in the United States, involving the construction of 26 kilometers of toll roads on Georgia’s SR-400 in Atlanta. A consortium including the Spanish firms ACS and Acciona has also submitted a proposal for the project. A Banco Sabadell analysis notes that these quarterly figures surpass market expectations, largely due to the toll road division exceeding analysts’ forecasts. Ferrovial’s shares rose more than 4% in Madrid on Tuesday after the company disclosed its first-quarter 2024 results on Monday after the market closed. The results show an adjusted EBITDA of 254 million euros, up 38% year on year.
El foco en Estados Unidos
When discussing investment goals, López stressed that the company’s focus will remain on the United States, where it intends to continue growing its projects with an emphasis on toll roads. “If an attractive asset appears in Europe or elsewhere, we will analyze it, but the focus is on the United States”, he stated.
The U.S. market accounts for roughly 80% of Ferrovial’s enterprise value, with a two-decade footprint spanning Texas, Virginia, and North Carolina. The firm is also advancing the planned expansion of Terminal 1 at New York’s JFK Airport, with completion anticipated in 2026. This strategic positioning makes listing and boosting liquidity on the Nasdaq a priority, aiming to broaden access to capital markets. On a recent trading day in Madrid, transactions were modest, with 8,708 Ferrovial shares exchanged, though a late-previous-session surge pushed activity to 29,354 shares. Still, the turnover remained well below the typical daily volume seen on the Madrid Stock Exchange, where Ferrovial usually moves well over a million euros in a single session.
Citations: Ferrovial investor briefing and quarterly results, 2024.