Business model and strategy

From the climate emergency to growing workforce and social expectations, increasing urbanisation, the decarbonisation of mobility and digitalisation, the challenges faced today by VINCI’s businesses are many and varied. To address them, we draw on our position as a global leader in concessions, energy and construction as well as the resilience of our business model.
For 130 years, VINCI has been fuelled by a relentless ambition: serving a useful purpose and caring for the planet.

VINCI Group's business model scheme

A resilient business model

The Group has never ceased to expand its business model, moving from electricity concessions in the early 20th century into motorway, airport and renewable energy concessions in the 21st, and from building and infrastructure construction into specialist activities in civil engineering and information technologies. As it has diversified its areas of expertise, so has VINCI entered more and more international markets. 

Our business model has always been based on the complementary nature of our activities conducted over different time frames, with the Energy business characterised by short cycles, the Construction business by medium-length cycles and the Concessions business focused on the long term. Income generated by the short- and medium-term business activities can thus be reinvested in concessions. This complementarity is key to our longevity and gives us the ability to ride out crises.

Our business model’s resilience also stems from our management approach. Due to our decentralised organisation and strong entrepreneurial culture, all VINCI companies and their teams are particularly agile in responding to the trends and cyclical ups and downs of their business environments.

Backed by this shared set of strong fundamentals, we aim to continue implementing our strategy over the long term and developing our three core businesses.

€10.9bn

2023 revenue
for the Concessions business

€25.8bn

2023 revenue
for the Energy business

€31.5bn

2023 revenue
for the Construction business

Three core businesses

Backed by a set of strong fundamentals shared across the group, VINCI aims to continue to grow in its three core businesses - Concessions, Energy, Construction - while bolstering technical and regional synergies in operations to win new projects.

Concessions: a leader in mobility infrastructure

In its Concessions business, VINCI finances, designs, develops and operates infrastructure, mainly in the area of transport. The aim of our strategy for this business, which takes a long-term perspective in line with the nature of its contracts, is to diversify, renew and internationalise our portfolio of concessions. As evidenced by our fast growth in airport and motorway concessions since the 2000s, our proactive approach in this area is having the desired results. VINCI has thus become France’s leading motorway concession holder as well as the world’s leading private airport operator and manages a growing number of motorways outside France.

L’aéroport de Faro, géré par VINCI Airports, est équipé d’une centrale solaire qui garantit son approvisionnement en énergie électrique décarbonée

To successfully implement this strategy, we harness our integrated expertise as a project investor and developer, in relation to both design-build projects and infrastructure operation and maintenance. We also draw on our culture and experience built up through a wide range of partnerships with local authorities and stakeholders in our ecosystems.

Structural demand for mobility, along with the large investments needed to adapt transport infrastructure to low-carbon uses while reinforcing its climate resilience, will deliver a long-term boost to our activities in this area.

In all sectors, new project development will benefit from synergies between the Concessions, Energy and Construction businesses, in relation to their expertise as well as their regional presence.

20,459

employees in Concessions business 2023

Visit the VINCI Concessions website to learn more about its activities.

Visit the VINCI Autoroutes website to learn more about its activities.

Energy: vigorous expansion in a high-growth sector

Since the early 2000s, we have focused strategically on our energy activities. The period has thus been marked by very strong organic and external growth for VINCI Energies, whose expertise in energy infrastructure and information technology has proven to be fully aligned with fundamental market trends. Today, it has 2,000 business units in more than 60 countries developing tailored multi-technical solutions applied to energy, transport and communications infrastructure, buildings and industrial sites.

Collaborateur sur une digitalisation des opérations de maintenance

The Group’s expansion accelerated with the integration of Cobra IS in 2022. Enjoying a strong foothold in Spain, Portugal and Latin America, as well as a solid reputation for delivering large engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) projects, Cobra IS offers a complementary fit with VINCI Energies. 

With Cobra IS, VINCI is building a portfolio of renewable energy production assets, comprised of large-capacity solar power plants and wind farms.

The strategy pursued for the Energy business has encompassed renewable energy projects since the integration of Cobra IS in 2022, a major energy player in Spain, Portugal and Latin America. Cobra IS has significant experience in applied industrial engineering and specialised services across a wide range of sectors, from manufacturing to mobility. 

In particular, we are building a portfolio of electricity generation facilities with a combined capacity of about 2 GW at the end of 2023. Given the significant acceleration in the deployment of renewable energy, the growth potential for this category of assets is especially high. 

137,708

employees in Energy business in 2023

Visit the VINCI Energies website to learn more about its activities.

Visit the Cobra IS website to learn more about its activities.

Construction: building for a sustainable world

A global construction industry leader with operations in some 100 countries through 1,300 business units, VINCI Construction is one of the Group’s earliest businesses and is where its entrepreneurial culture all started.

The integration of Eurovia’s activities in 2021 brought all of the Group’s civil engineering, infrastructure and building know-how together under the same management, creating internal synergies and facilitating innovation to develop efficient solutions for increasingly complex projects.

Vue aérienne de la construction de l’usine de préfabrication des 89 caissons qui formeront le tunnel du Femern, plus long tunnel immergé du monde

VINCI Construction will continue to develop its three pillars – Major Projects, Specialty Networks and Proximity Networks – using a combined global and local approach to achieve optimal market coverage and extend the international reach of VINCI’s activities.

The environmental transition will undoubtedly generate substantial opportunities for infrastructure projects, notably involving power grids, water management, low-carbon transport and climate-resilient structures.

Similarly, building and urban development activities will benefit from the focus on environmental issues and on the challenges of urbanisation and its impact on how people live and work.

119,383

employees in Construction business in 2023

Visit the VINCI Construction website to learn more about its activities.

A Group-wide vision of all-round performance made even more relevant by the climate emergency

For VINCI, environmental, workforce-related and social factors are inseparable from the technical and economic performance of its projects and businesses. Given the climate emergency, this vision has become even more relevant. We are addressing this strategic priority for our future by looking to play an active role in the transition of the built environment, infrastructure and mobility. 

With that goal in mind, we recast our environmental policy, undertaking ambitious commitments to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, promote the circular economy and preserve natural environments. We thus see the energy and environmental transition as a powerful driver for adding new expertise and solutions while supporting our business activities’ long-term growth. Our policy of innovation is building opportunities in this transformation, prompting the emergence of novel solutions and services that create environmental value. 

Beneficiaries

Our business model and our strategy benefit all of the Group’s stakeholders:

  • customers, by bringing them satisfaction and innovation;
  • employees, the Group’s most valuable asset, by sharing the benefits of our success with them;
  • suppliers and subcontractors, by building close and lasting bonds with them founded on ethical principles;
  • citizens, by working side by side with them for the common good and the energy transition;
  • investors, by delivering strong returns for them, fuelled by our consistently robust performance over the long term;
  • governments, by paying taxes in more than 100 countries. 

Our human, technical, local and environmental resources

Human resources

  • We have 280,000 employees around the world. 
  • We hired 68,612 new permanent employees in 2023. 
  • We protect the health and safety of everyone working on our construction sites, with the support of our 2,800 employees in health and safety roles and by delivering health and safety training. 
  • We share the benefits of our success with our employees, who together own 10.2% of VINCI’s share capital. 
  • We promote sustainable and inclusive growth each year by assisting more than 4,000 people on the margins of the labour market through integration programmes, by recruiting over 12,000 young people under the age of 26 and by supporting employee engagement in solidarity initiatives.

Technical resources

  • We are currently running 55 R&D programmes and have a €50 million budget in this area. 
  • We have 2,500 patents in effect around the world. 
  • We have a wide portfolio of expertise. 
  • We have launched a global investment fund dedicated to low-carbon hydrogen infrastructure solutions. 
  • We have an innovation and foresight platform, called Leonard, which has incubated or accelerated more than 200 projects since its creation in 2017, and we have formed a scientific partnership with three of the ParisTech engineering schools, under the name lab recherche environnement, which has supported 75 research projects related to energy, biodiversity or mobility since 2008.

Local resources

  • We have operations in more than 120 countries.
  • We manage over 300,000 worksites per year, more than 70 airports, 400 quarries and more than 7,500 km of motorways. 
  • We made €3.2 billion in investments in the regions where we operate in 2023. 
  • We contributed €35 billion to GDP in France in 2023.
  • We place nearly 50% of our purchases with micro, small and medium-sized enterprises

Environmental resources

  • In 2020, VINCI has set itself an environmental ambition based on three key principles:
    • Acting for the climate
    • Optimising resources through the circular economy
    • Preserving natural environments
  • We have more than 800 environmental experts on staff. 
  • We generated €7.3 billion in revenue in 2023 from projects awarded environmental certifications and labels. 
  • We devoted more than 30% of training hours to the environment in 2023. 
  • We launched the VINCI Environment Awards in 2021 to single out the environmental actions of employees on the ground, and then promote and disseminate them more widely within the Group.

Learn more