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Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Francisco Reynés Massanet

Chief Executive Officer Abertis Group
Why did your compagny choose to invest in France?

In 2006, we had the opportunity to bid for the privatization of the motorways in the north of France, the former SANEF and SAPM network. We thought of this as our first big step forward in internationalizing Abertis outside of Spain. It was a mature brownfield project with an existing cash flow. One very important and solid argument was the stability of the legal framework, which makes concessions more stable and forseeable.

What makes France attractive to you as an investor?
 
I think France has a very solid economy. We might not expect big booms, but we certainly don’t expect big recessions either, which means that we can maintain sustainable growth. There is still room for improvement and to make our operations more efficient. In terms of the infrastructures and motorways, we have seen a very special focus from the French government to boost communication networks in the north of France where we are based. Concerning our investment in the satellite industry, we see that the most important new technology industry in France today is the aerospace industry. This gives us a really important competitive advantage and the Eutelsat company, in which we are the number one shareholder, can obviously benefit from this.
What are your company’s future investment plans in France?

 Well it depends more on France than ourselves. We are interested in developping activities outside of Spain as we want to be more international. We have three really important business units, which are of course motorways, airports and satellites, and our intention is to create value for our shareholders and growth. The more projects that we can afford in France, the more projects we will study. It will depend more on the privatization of some  of the existing projects that France can offer.

>> View the video interview

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