Growth and debt reduction
OHLA’s CEO José Antonio Fernández Gallar began his presentation by reviewing the main figures achieved by the company in 2021, a year that closed with an EBITDA of 91.2 million euros, “the best
figure since 2016″ and close to 3.7 billion euros in awards which represents “the highest order intake in the last five years”. He also referred to the company’s order book “which totals more than 5.8 billion euros”, as well as to the reduction of indebtedness. Gross financial debt ended 2021 at 523.5 million euros, 30.1% less than in 2020, and stressed that “OHLA’s commitment to deleveraging is strong, determined and continuous”.
Promotion of concessions
Regarding the events after the 2021 financial year, he pointed out the additional reduction, already in 2022, of the indebtedness by nearly “100 million euros over the 2021 figures”. Thus, “if we consider the 2021 financial year and the first months of 2022, we have reduced gross leverage by around 300 million euros”, all of which has allowed us to improve the company’s credit profile.
From an order intake standpoint, OHLA has strengthened its order book in 2022 with two very important contracts: the recent award in consortium of the Purple Line project in the USA, for a total amount of 2,170 million euros, and the award of a new concession in Colombia, the Accesses to Bogota Norte 2 highway, “in line with our continued commitment to promote concessions”.
In relation to the objectives for 2022, the CEO pointed out that the company expects to achieve sales of more than 3,000 million euros, as well as an EBITDA of around 110 million euros and order intake of more than 3,500 million euros. These objectives will be reinforced by the award of two concessions per year and a firm commitment to reduce gross financial debt.
In addition, he defended the need to promote public-private collaboration mechanisms to undertake priority projects in the infrastructure sector, stressing that “the sector must be at the forefront of economic and social recovery, becoming a factor of growth and stability”.