INTERVIEW
“THE NEED TO TACKLE THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY RIGHT NOW HAS TURNED THE LONG-TERM FUTURE INTO A SHORT-TERM CONCERN. THE PROSPECTS THIS IS OPENING UP FOR A GROUP SUCH AS OURS ARE MORE TANGIBLE, AND MORE ENORMOUS, THAN EVER BEFORE.”
How would you describe VINCI’s performance in 2023?
It is solid. We moved forward on our virtuous growth path despite the uncertainties in our economic environment and the geopolitical situation. We increased our revenue, our operating income and, notwithstanding significantly higher financial costs, our net income. Our free cash flow, which had broken a record in 2022, rose substantially again in 2023, giving us more latitude to press ahead with our development. These accomplishments are the hallmark of a group that is well run and has an organisational and management model that facilitates each company’s and each team’s performance on the ground. We are agile entrepreneurs, and this gives us a valuable advantage in times of radical change. Our business model also makes us resilient. We have been reinforcing our model constantly and consistently since VINCI’s inception, and can see exactly how relevant it is today: our three main fields of expertise – in mobility concessions, in energy and in construction – place us where the answers to the contemporary world’s problems are
emerging. All this shines through our current performance and, even more so, our growth prospects. We are also strengthening our resilience by diversifying geographically: our vigorous international expansion has increased our revenue outside France from 37% of the total a decade ago to 57% in 2023.
Are the effects of the health crisis on concessions behind you now?
Yes, definitely. We have seen a strong upswing in our airport activity. Passenger numbers at VINCI Airports as a whole are practically back where they were in 2019, and its 2023 results are its best ever. So the business line is actually stronger now than before the health crisis. Our track record here is a good example of our ability to update our model: we were a marginal player in this market 20 years ago and are now the world’s leading private operator in the sector – with a network spanning more than 70 airports in 13 countries. Traffic on VINCI Autoroutes’ motorways in France inched up even though the economic situation took a turn for the worse, showing
that roads remain predominant in the country’s transport system. And we continued enlarging our motorway network outside France in 2023: we moved into Brazil and grew in Europe through the projects we are working on in Germany and the Czech Republic.
VINCI is also pursuing a vigorous expansion policy in its Energy business. What did you achieve there in 2023?
Energy is another example of a side business we have built into a world-class player. In this case through a combination of VINCI Energies’ remarkable development over the past two decades and the acquisition of Cobra IS, which joined us at the end of 2021. Organic growth in this business amounted to almost 13% in 2023, and its revenue is on its way to catch up with that in our longest-standing business, Construction. As their expertise covers every stage in electricity production, transmission, distribution and use, VINCI Energies and Cobra IS are tapping into the full potential arising from the energy transition. We are also becoming more involved upstream and
downstream of this value chain, i.e. financing, developing and operating renewable energy production plants – for instance the São José do Belmonte photovoltaic megacomplex in Brazil, which we commissioned in July 2023. Looking at the bigger picture, the fact that the energy transition and digital transformation are gathering momentum is opening doors for VINCI Energies and Cobra IS beyond the energy infrastructure market, in sectors dealing with the same issues, which range from industry to buildings and on to information technologies.