We have always said that we are determined to expand in the energy sector. This large acquisition, representing an investment of about €4.2 billion in enterprise value, confirms our ambition to build a global leader in this field. Cobra IS complements VINCI: it has strong positions in the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America, and acknowledged expertise in developing turnkey energy projects. It works on these projects synergistically with a renewable energy concession development platform, which we have acquired as well. With this move, we will change scale in these very buoyant markets. We will also bring in our investment capacity and know-how as a concession operator, construction contractor and energy specialist. Moving forward, we will strengthen the long-term side of our business, because we intend to keep the renewable energy assets we develop, as we have done with our motorway and airport concessions.
Notwithstanding the lingering uncertainty surrounding Covid-19 – which makes it difficult to make forecasts –, we are in a good position for the post-crisis phase. VINCI Construction and VINCI Energies have very large order books, so we expect them both to remain on their positive trajectories. The contribution from Cobra IS will also kick in. At VINCI Concessions, barring new travel restrictions, motorway traffic should remain as robust as in the second half of 2021. Airport traffic still depends on government measures. This is especially true for international flights. But, as we have seen in the past, passenger numbers will probably pick up swiftly as soon as the health situation improves. And we expect traffic to continue to grow over the long term, because the structural factors underpinning demand for air travel are solid.
Beyond 2022 – and this is the main very positive signal –, the growth potential in our business lines has certainly never been so considerable. We are active in the mobility, construction and energy sectors. So we are at the centre of the challenges facing today’s world. Our companies are rallying around all the transformations under way in cities, buildings, transport infrastructure, energy grids and communication networks, in particular to address the major challenge of our planet’s health.
The ambitious commitments we made in 2020, when we recast our environmental policy, rank this issue as a strategic priority for VINCI. This is the new frontier for all our business activities. We can and want to make a positive contribution in this area, through all our business lines – each in its respective field but also combining their expertise to make progress towards this primary objective. It is our responsibility as builders of cities and regions. It is a necessity dictated by the climate emergency. And, through our ability to respond, we are opening doors into the future for our companies and at the same time taking action for the future of the planet. We are moreover doing all this with the support of our shareholders, who voted overwhelmingly in favour of our environmental transition plan at our 2021 Shareholders’ General Meeting, and of the investors who subscribe to the green bonds we issue. Their trust is encouraging us to push ahead in this direction.
By combining a strong thrust at Group level and our teams’ commitment on the ground. We were extremely active on this front in 2021. The success of our first Environment Awards is one example of this. We have launched action plans in each of our business lines, and now our employees are amplifying them with thousands of initiatives in our day-to-day operations. We are seeing the same enthusiasm and creativity in our teams worldwide. This shows that the environment can be a powerful lever for cohesion and transformation in a group such as ours.
Implementation is based on a two-pronged approach: taking action to reduce our environmental impact in our own operations, with the aim of setting an example in our production and operation processes, and supporting our customers’ and infrastructure users’ efforts to shrink their footprint. To move forward on these two complementary fronts, we can count on a flurry of innovation both at Group level in our platform Leonard, and in our businesses and companies. We are radically accelerating our business lines’ environmental transformation, with our eyes on two goals: to renew our own practices and, through our products, services and solutions, to fast-track the ecological transition in the cities and regions where we play a prominent role. This is what prompted us, for instance, to team up with other large companies to invest in developing green hydrogen and in infrastructure to produce this low-carbon energy that is bound to be an essential component of mobility tomorrow.
We are moving forward single-mindedly with our plan for virtuous growth. The growing sense of urgency is pressing us all to act now to protect the future of the planet and people. This urgency, in other words, is setting virtuous cycles in motion. Similarly, our companies set virtuous growth cycles in motion when they play their full role as drivers in this vital collective endeavour. Ultimately, the challenges in today’s world are showing us that all-round performance, which is the approach we have always taken, is the right way to go. For VINCI, economic performance, environmental performance and contributing to the common good go hand in hand. This is our vision of progress!
