In line with its proactive development policy, VINCI Highways strengthened its activities in the United States, the major highlight of the year being acquisition of the first concession with traffic risk in the country. It also signed new toll service contracts, expanded its network in Brazil and brought into service a new motorway built by VINCI Construction in the Czech Republic. Revenue rose 14.5% in actual terms and 7.5% on a like-for-like basis to €403 million.
Development
United States
In April 2024, VINCI Highways finalised the acquisition of 100% of NWP HoldCo LLC, the company holding the concession for the Northwest Parkway in Denver. This 14 km tolled section of the city’s ring road serves important economic, residential and tourist areas in the capital of Colorado one of the most economically vibrant states in the country – and facilitates connections with top-tier infrastructure including Denver international airport, Interstate 25 and the US Route 36. In the longer term, the opening of the final link on the Denver ring road – which will then encircle the entire city should generate additional traffic on the Northwest Parkway section.
Acquisition of this first traffic risk concession in the United States represents an equity investment of $1.2 billion. The contract, which will run until 2106, has the longest remaining term in the highway concession sector in the United States. It benefits from a protective regulatory framework that includes a toll indexation formula linked to economic growth and inflation, plus a floor against downturns in these values. VINCI Highways already operates the Ohio River Bridges in the United States, an infrastructure asset linking the states of Indiana and Kentucky, which was built by the Group under a public-private partnership.
ViaPlus, the VINCI Highways subsidiary that manages electronic toll services, won two new multi-year contracts with a combined value of €53 million. The first was granted by the Georgia State Road and Tollway Authority to manage free-flow and dynamically-priced transactions (fare modulation according to the time and traffic levels) on a 107 km network of highways around the state’s capital, Atlanta. The second is in Texas, where ViaPlus has been managing transactions for road authorities in the north and centre of the state since 2018. It involves installing a licence plate optical recognition system developed by ViaPlus across the Harris County road network to optimise toll collection.
Brazil
Following a call for tender launched by Brazil’s national road transport agency, VINCI Highways won the 30-year concession on a section of the BR-040 highway, a 594 km tolled road linking Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais, to Cristalina, in the south of the state of Goiás. It serves the federal capital Brasília and the ports on the country’s southern coast, notably for the transportation of mining, industrial and agricultural products. VINCI Highways will take over operation from the first quarter of 2025 and will carry out substantial works, which include widening a 300 km section, creating service lanes over 60 km, building several wildlife passages and reforesting 600 hectares.
With this operation, which follows acquisition in 2023 of a majority stake in Entrevias, VINCI Highways now holds concessions for almost 1,200 km of highways in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Goiás.
Greece
Together with its Greek partners Avax, Aktor and Gek Terna, VINCI Highways exercised its right to acquire, at the end of 2024, the stake previously held by Hochtief in the concession company for the Athens–Pyrgos motorway. This increased its ownership in the concession from 29.9% to 36%.
Programme management
In the Czech Republic, the D4, the first motorway contract awarded under a public-private partnership in the country, was brought into service at the end of 2024. This new infrastructure located south-west of Prague improves mobility between the rural areas of South Bohemia and the major economic corridors to Germany and Austria. The works were completed in under four years by local VINCI Construction subsidiaries employing up to 1,600 workers. The project entailed building a new 32 km section, upgrading 17 km of existing road, creating 20 wildlife passages and greening 40 hectares along the route.
1The section of the BR-040 highway contract won in 2024 takes VINCI Highways’ Brazilian network to 1,200 km.
2The Via Salis motorway, the first road-sector public-private partnership in the Czech Republic, opened to traffic at the end of 2024.