Spanish infrastructure company Acciona has announced a profit of €352m in 2019, a 60% rise on its 2018 performance when corporate operations are excluded.
The company attributed the rise, which was made in spite of a 4% fall in revenue to €7.2bn, to its growing operating efficiency and a growth in margins.
It added that its adoption of sustainable solutions played a role in the results. At year-end, 93% of its investments and 83% of its gross operating profit qualified as "low carbon'", according to the EU’s new classification of business activities.
Acciona’s earnings from its energy business grew almost 14% last year to €845m, driven mainly by the performance of renewable assets outside of Spain.
The company’s overall investment increased to €1.2bn, with its energy business accounted for €509m. Over the year it installed 471MW of generation, and has 835MW under construction, mainly in Chile (251MW), the US (145MW) and the Ukraine (76MW).
By the end of 2019, the Madrid-based company had 10.1GW of installed capacity: 56% in Spain and 44% in international markets, with a total annual production of 22,991GWh. The company added that it had 13GW of potential projects.
The energy division’s revenue declined 9.5% to €2bn, largely owing to a fall in hydropower in Spain caused by lack of rain.
The investment in infrastructure amounted to €37m, mainly concentrated on the Sydney Light Rail concession and the purchase of heavy machinery in Canada. The real estate business made a net investment of €210m. Net financial debt stood at €4.9bn.
The turnkey project business signed some €4.7bn of contracts over the year, and the portfolio now stands at €8bn. It said that desalination plants, bridges and railway lines were the types of schemes in greatest demand.
Image: Acciona has recently pioneered the use of driverless trucks (Acciona)
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