Abertis Infraestructuras SA Management Discusses Q3 2010 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Abertis Infraestructuras SA (
)
Q3 2010 Earnings Call
November 11, 2010 7:00 am ET
Executives
Steven Fernandez - Director of IR
José Aljaro - CFO and CSO
Analysts
Bruno Silva - BPI
Robert Crimes - Credit Suisse
Marcin Wojtal - Bank of America-Merrill Lynch
Nicolas Mora - Exane BNP Paribas
Presentation
Steven Fernandez
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Steven Fernandez, Director of IR at Abertis and I am joined here today my Mr. José Aljaro, our CFO and other members of the Abertis staff. Mr. José Aljaro will lead today’s presentation on the results.
Before our starting, we want to thank you once again for joining us in today’s 9 months results conference call. We are truly aware once again that it’s a busy results period, and by now many of you will have had the chance to look at our results published this morning so we just wanted to focus on a few key points after which we will open the lines for a Q&A session.
Without further adieu I hand over the line to Mr. José Aljaro, CFO.
José Aljaro
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. As usual, following the publication of our results in this morning I’d like to highlight a few key points. We present growth in the key line of Abertis P&L. Revenues grew 5.5% to €3.1 billion. EBITDA advances 4.6% to €1.9 billion and net profit rose 4.2% to €561 million.
In toll roads, traffic continued to moderate its decline falling by 0.4% in the first nine months of the year versus minus 0.7% in first-half of 2010. With very high growth class 1.4% helped performing light vehicle minus 0.7%.
At this point, it's worth reminding you that 2010 has been market by a number of one-off events that have had a negative impact on overall traffic including strikes in both Spain and France and the poor weather conditions in Q1, 2010. It's tripping out these effects, traffic in Abertis road was had declined by 0.01% versus the 0.4% we’ve reported.
In addition, if we take into a calendar impact of the AP-7 and C-32 compensation agreements, the underlying profit would have grown by 0.9% at the group level versus the 0.4% headline decline. We would also like to remark that the Q3, 2010 on external basis marked the first quarter since Q1 2008 of positive traffic evolution in our network. Regards the evolution of traffic by region, same traffic in the first nine months of the year declined by 4.3% versus minus 4.8 in the third half '10.
The traffic equivalent, taking into account the AP-7 and C-32 compensation agreement stood at minus 1.8% in Spain. French traffic grew 1.8% in the period despite the strikes, minus 0.5% cumulative impact, and also heavy vehicle traffic continues to post solid growth at 4.8%.
Traffic in the Americas grew by 4.9% due to the first nine months, which are not at all acceleration in the third quarter plus 7.5. All in all, overall revenues and EBITDA grew by 6% respectively. In terms of the traffic outlook for the rest of the year we continue to see a slight improvement in October and expect to close the year with overall flat negative traffic growth.
As regards, the evolution of tariff, we expect 2011 level to increase by between 1.2 and 1.6% in our European growth. This is a result of inflation and just put to rest agreement about flat or negative tariff for the next year and deflation of risk.
And we should move on to the telecom. The telecom business posted a 7.2% increase in revenues to €418 million and 4.2% decline in EBITDA to €165 million. The evolution of the telecom business in 2010 is market by the impact of the analog feature as we explained in our Investor Day in April. At that time, we provided market with guidance regarding the evolution of the business. Now we are pleased to report that we are on track to achieve the targets set at the time. In this sense, we expect the unit to continue to be a growth driver for Abertis in the coming years.
Therefore business revenues surpassed 3.2% to 211 and EBITDA grew by 1% versus nine months 2009. This evolution was mainly driven by higher revenues per passenger in TBI plus 6.6% together with under precision of the pound versus the euro plus 3% and the positive performance of MBJ in Jamaica plus 1.1% passenger number which offset the decline in activity at TBI minus 5.6% passenger numbers.
In other parts of the district nothing remarkable, and Abertis continue to grow its cash flows. In a business that should be synonymous with cash generations, we continue to deliver. Net cash flow reuse at 7.4% plus 5% organic to €1.2 billion while the free cash flow up to total CapEx and dividend stood at €500 million versus minus €277 million in nine months 2009. As you can see from our result release, we continue to be very vigilant on CapEx. Net debt as of the end of September 2010 amounted to €14.3 billion. Our free cash flow generation for the period reduces the amount of net debt by €500 million and this reduction was partially offset by changes in perimeter around 120 and other non-cash effect such as foreign exchange and derivative for an amount around 126 million resulting in an overall reduction of €253 million for year end 2009.
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