The project portfolio in Spain of the large construction companies is decreasing, despite the fact that public tenders have been encouraged this year thanks to the electoral cycle and to Adif and the General Directorate of Roads.
ACS, Acciona, Ferrovial, Sacyr, OHLA and FCC, which are the six largest Spanish companies in the sector, added at the end of 2022 a portfolio of projects in the country worth 35,062 million euros, a figure 40% lower than a decade ago, of 58,128 million, according to information from the same companies compiled by this newspaper. It is also lower than the 41,637 million in 2019, before the pandemic.
This volume responds to the particular cycle of public works in Spain, which experienced a boom before the Great Recession and which, after a convalescent decade and with allocations to the State budget of less than 1%, has not reached to recover the thrust. The projects are no longer so focused on roads, construction, housing or large works and are now turning towards areas such as energy and transport, in which competitors appear beyond the traditional construction companies.
ACS is the construction company with the largest portfolio of projects, for 68,996 million euros, of which 9%, or 5,972 million, correspond to Spain. In 2007, it had a much more modest volume of orders, of 12,011 million, but of the latter the majority, 9,767 million, came from its country of origin. In 2019, before the pandemic, it totaled 10,885 million in the country.
Their case is repeated with particularities in the rest of the construction companies. OHLA is now the one with the most Spanish weight, at 41%, but because its total portfolio has shrunk a lot, to just 1,684 million, a fifth of what it was a decade ago. In FCC, Spain also weighs a lot, 35%, but the volume of orders has fallen in ten years from nearly 18,000 million to 14,095 million at the end of 2022.
Ferrovial, which has just moved its headquarters to the Netherlands, reached 7,800 million a decade ago in Spain, or a quarter of the total, and now puts the figure at 2,200 million, or 15%. At Sacyr, the Spanish portfolio has gone from around 12,500 million ten years ago to 8,137 million. Acciona, on the other hand, is the only one that has increased the amount in the last decade, up to 3,963 million, but the national weight is now 18%, compared to 30% a decade ago.
The construction companies have actually known how to turn necessity into a virtue, since the last few years have been internationalization, especially in search of large works in the United States and a model of concessions that seems exhausted in Spain. This has allowed, as a whole, the project portfolio to reach record levels: ACS added nearly 70,000 million euros at the end of last year; Sacyr, 54,755 million; FCC, 40,273 million; Railway, 14,743 million; Acciona, 22,020 million, and OHLA, 1,684 million.
This election year there has been an acceleration in the tenders of the General Directorate of Roads, which have multiplied by six until June, up to 923 million, according to data from the association of large construction companies Seopan. Adif has also increased tenders by 58%, up to 2,376 million, and there are administrations such as the Junta d'Andalusia and the Generalitat Valenciana with increases of 69% and 91%, respectively.
Despite this, the president of Seopan, Julián Núñez, warns that the problems now have to do with the "absence of price stabilization formulas and mechanisms for tendered works" after the increase in the price of materials. Many companies are forced to advance resources, which puts them in an "unsustainable" treasury situation.
Companies are also complaining about a standstill in public-private collaboration. The National Office for the Evaluation of infrastructure projects, recently created, does not work as they would like. Seven out of ten files submitted get unfavorable reports and, by the middle of the year, there were 3,000 million euros of paralyzed budget, they say.
