OHL celebrates its 110th anniversary and prepares to embark on a new era

June 28, 2021

Luis Amodio, Chairman of OHL.

OHL has been in business for 110 years. The company’s origins date back to 1911 in Bilbao, where, on May 15, the parent company, Sociedad General de Obras y Construcciones, Obrascón, S. A. Obrascón was founded in a port spirit as an international company. The Alcántara dock, in the port of Lisbon, and the west dock of the Port of Santos, also in the Portuguese capital, were its first contracts in 1912.

Between 1953 and 1971, Obrascón was owned by Banco de Bilbao, and then passed to Altos Hornos de Vizcaya. In 1987, it was on the verge of disappearing due to losses of more than one billion pesetas. It was reorganized and has been listed on the stock exchange since 1991.

In the three-year period from 1996 to 1999, the company carried out a decisive change of scale through the absorption of 11 construction companies. The two most important incorporated companies were Huarte and Lain, giving rise to OHL in May 1999.

In 2002, it began its internationalization, which will lead it to become a world reference in infrastructures with an outstanding position in the United States, where it has been present since 2006, and Latin America, a region in which it has been developing infrastructure projects for 40 years. Today, a leading global player, it is the 47th largest contractor in the world, according to the ranking of the prestigious publication ENR.

With a total portfolio a of more than €5,1 billion at the end of the first quarter in 2021, the company has exported its engineering to the five continents, where it has left its mark through the execution of major infrastructure projects in all areas of civil engineering and singular construction. In addition to this, it has experience in infrastructure concession management, the execution of singular projects in the tourism-hotel sector, and in the execution of projects in the Industrial and Service areas. Among its most important milestones are:

  • Completion of the first high-speed rail project in Turkey, specifically the 206 km long high-speed line between Ankara and Istanbul on the Eskisehir-Esenkent section.
  • The construction of the Airportlink, an elevated double-track line connecting Metrorail’s Earlington Heights station with the Miami Intermodal Center (MIC) at Miami airport. This is the first construction project in the rail sector to be awarded to a Spanish company in the United States.
  • The construction of Torrespacio, a 230 m high skyscraper in which high-strength concrete was used for the first time in Spain in this type of building, reducing its impact on the environment.

In addition, OHL has nearly two decades of experience in Concessions, having promoted and managed more than 40 assets in Europe and America.

Among the company’s singular constructions, under outstanding sustainability standards, Centro Canalejas Madrid the major urban regeneration project of Spain. OHL has carried out its promotion and rehabilitation.

In the Industrial area, reference should be made, among others, to the Empalme I combined cycle power plant in Mexico, with a guaranteed net power of more than 770 MW.

For its part, Services, which is present in Spain, Chile and Mexico and has almost 10,000 employees, carries out activities in the areas of cleaning, maintenance, urban services and social and healthcare services. It has a portfolio of more than 500 contracts in force for public and private clients.

Sustainability is in the company’s DNA

Good governance, sustainability and innovation have been the cornerstones of its growth. In 2003, OHL made public its commitment to sustainable development as a fundamental element in its growth model. This commitment is based on a business model that assumes sustainability as a transversal aspect of its strategy, guaranteeing responsible action in social, environmental and governance terms.

The company has been part of the FTSE4 Good Ibex stock market index since 2008, is a member of the United Nations Global Compact and is committed to the 2030 Agenda, as well as the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, among other international initiatives.

OHL has developed over the last two decades more than 300 R&D&I projects and currently has 12 patent families in force, with a presence in 28 territories. Some of them have given rise to licensing contracts, as is the case of Cubipod, an element for the sustainable construction of embankment dike protection blankets, with licensing contracts to be used in Europe, Africa and America.

New stage

Coinciding with its 110th anniversary, OHL begins a new stage in which it has a strengthened financial situation. Once the refinancing and recapitalization process initiated at the end of January 2021 has been completed, the company reduces its indebtedness by €105 million and strengthen its capital structure.

This transaction significantly strengthens OHL’s balance sheet by increasing its equity in about €180 million, in addition to the fact that the company will not have any bond maturities until 2025. In this transaction, the Amodio family, the company’s shareholder of reference, has invested €37 million.