Juan-Miguel Villar Mir highlights the outstanding international positioning reached by Spain’s leading concessionaire and construction groups

Juan-Miguel Villar Mir has participated in the last seminar of the program entitled Company Engineering. Present and Future, arranged by the Spanish Institute of Engineering. Specifically, the chairman of the OHL Group was part of the panel entitled Construction, Civil Engineering Works and Infrastructures, along with Fernando Echegaray del Pozo, Manager of the Aeropuertos del Estado network; Rafael Castillo Díaz, Head of Engineering of Acciona Infraestructuras; and Luis López, Strategy & Development Manager of the ADIF network. The seminar was inaugurated by the president of the Spanish Engineering Institute, Manuel Moreu, who highlighted the relevance of company engineering.

In his speech, the chairman of the OHL Group pointed out the outstanding international position reached by Spain’s leading concessionaire and construction groups thanks to their firm commitment to R&D&I and expansion into other markets. Thus, he explained that in the concession field, according to the renowned Public Works Financing (PWF) ranking for 2011, five Spanish groups in the sector are amongst the ten largest private transport infrastructure operators on the international market; in construction, according to the classification drawn up by the specialized publication Engineering News Record (ENR), eight Spanish groups are included amongst the world’s fifty leading construction companies with the greatest international activity.

When focusing on OHL, he informed those in attendance that internationalization and innovation have been the basic pillars of his strategy for growth and profitability. He also highlighted some of the Group’s milestones abroad, including the Ankara-Istanbul High-Speed Line, the first high-speed railway project executed by a Spanish company abroad, or the Airportlink, the first construction project undertaken by a Spanish company in the U.S. railway sector, consisting of extending the Miami subway to the international airport of the capital city of the State of Florida. In his presentation he also referred to OHL Group’s economic parameters and explained that 70% of its sales, 73% of its staff and 89% of its portfolio and EBITDA are generated outside Spain.

Infrastructures Business Meeting

Furthermore, Juan-Miguel Villar Mir has also participated in the Infrastructures Business Meeting arranged by the General Secretariat for Latin America, with the aim of providing a business perspective of the region’s challenges when taking steps towards infrastructure development.

The event was inaugurated by His Royal Highness the Prince of Asturias, Felipe de Borbón; the Minister of Development, Ana Pastor; the State Secretary for Latin America, Jesús Gracia Aldaz; the president of CAF, Banco Latinoamericano de Desarrollo, Enrique García; and the General Secretary for Latin America, Enrique V. Iglesias. The seminar gathered a significant group of global infrastructure companies and public and private investors.

Juan-Miguel Villar Mir took part in the panel entitled Infrastructures and integration, which also included María Emma Mejía, General Secretary of UNASUR; Jesús Schucry Giacoman Zapata, Deputy General Manager for Economic Development and Infrastructure, General Management of the Mesoamérica project; and Bernardo Quintana, Chairman of ICA, a Mexican engineering and construction company.