Vinci SA (VCISF) 2024 Full Year Results Earnings Call Transcript

2025-02-07 13:47:06 ET

Vinci SA (VCISF)

2024 Full Year Results Earnings Conference Call

February 07, 2025 4:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Xavier Huillard – Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Christian Labeyrie – Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer

Nicolas Notebaert – Chief Executive Officer of Concessions

Arnaud Palliez – Head-Investor Relations

Pierre Anjolras – Chief Operating Officer

José María Castillo – Chief Executive Officer, Cobra IS

Conference Call Participants

Elodie Rall – JPMorgan

Sven Edelfelt – Oddo

Patrick Roselle – Goldman Sachs

Graham Hunt – Jefferies

Luis Prieto – Kepler

Gregor Kuglitsch – UBS

Nicolas Mora – Morgan Stanely

Presentation

Xavier Huillard

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for the Full Year Results of 2024. I'm with Christian Labeyrie, probably the last time that's for me. You have all the ExCo and the heads of divisions and Pierre Anjolras, also José María Castillo, who's there at the back of the room and will be available to answer your questions.

So, first of all, a few images and image of the VINCI Autoroutes charging stations that are all equipped with 2,100 charging stations, 90% ultrafast, not just in rest areas, service areas, 21 are equipped. So, I think, we can say that we're the best equipped global network in charging stations just to encourage you to buy a new vehicle, especially once you bought the vehicle, you take the Ulis electric option, which allows you not only to identify all the charging stations on the highway network and also off the highway, making available, its power and availability allows you to pay with your badge and that is a tremendous ease of use.

Next, Lisbon Airport, you'll recall that when we arrived in 2013, Lisbon had 15 million passengers that now handles 35 million last year, led the Portuguese Government to ask us, first and foremost, to look at the setting up of a new airport at Alcochete. You'll recall a former military firing range and to launch a major modernization program at the existing airport not to improve quality of service.

Next photograph illustrates our highway strategy in Brazil. Two or three years ago, we acquired Entrevias, which had the concession for 570ks of highway in Brazil, the works for this first concession are ending and we have positioned ourselves on new tenders, and we successfully won the 30-year concession of the BR-040 highway on the Belo Horizonte Brasilia route for some 600 kilometers. What does that mean? It means that the highway toll concessions with traffic risk in Brazil are greater than Cofiroute in France and that of Escota. It's beginning to grow.

Next, VINCI Energies is an ICT component Axians, which acquired a few months back for now one of the leaders, if not the leader in cloud and cybersecurity services in Germany and Switzerland. And I'll tell you more about Axians and VINCI Energies since the acquisition, that's about €4.5 billion in revenue, which is quite significant. Here an image of an open cycle gas power plant won by Cobra for the Irish Electricity Board, 300 megawatt. This type of equipment is vital in some geographies. So as to ensure stability and resilience of the electricity system with the growing injection of intermittent renewable sources, this is necessary to ensure stability. And of course, it's good news for Cobra because Cobra has genuine expertise in gas turbine, combined cycle or open cycle plants. It's built more than 10 gigawatts of such projects across the world.

Lastly, VINCI Construction that confirms its fine breakthrough in Australia. This is a great contract to modernize and extend the wastewater treatment plant in Canberra. And lastly, if you have some savings, you know where to invest them. Pierre Anjolras, Virginie Leroy and Patrice Alba with our partner, Marzocco, inaugurated an impressive and highly technical prestige property complex in Monaco. There are five villas on the rooftops. Virginie can tell you the discount she will offer you, if you're interested in acquiring one of those properties. We're looking at hundreds of millions, but it's really not very much.

2024 performance, we can say those excellent quality, revenue and earnings are up, reaching record levels and this, despite the impact of the new tax on French motorways, shows that we fought long and hard in France and outside of France, that in spite of the tax, we were able to grow our net income. What's also important, we continue to expand internationally, which now accounts 58% of our business and over half our net earnings fully in line with our roadmap doesn't mean that we're neglecting France. We continue to grow faster internationally than in France.

And the year was rich in new developments, particularly in concessions. Big cherry on the cake is, of course, free cash flow generation, coming in at an exceptional level, and the order book which was already very strong at the end of 2023, continued to grow significantly with 70% of orders coming from outside France. All this to say that, once again, we're extremely resilient for two main reasons. We have the right model for creating value in our three core businesses, concessions, energy and construction and equally important, we have the organizational management model fit for purpose making us highly committed, agile and responsible....

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