The origins of Acciona date back to the 19th century with the development of a railway line connecting the main Northwest cities in Spain. Today, the original civil construction company has turned into a global developer and service provider, specially focused in providing solutions to society to face energy, infrastructure and water challenges.
Acciona’s success story has been achieved over more than 100 years and the future looks bright for a multinational company that now operates in 32 countries with a 35,000 workforce. The company ranks number three in terms of installed renewable capacity worldwide with 7.5 GW at year end. It is the global renewable operator with presence in more technologies (6) and more countries (18) than any other player.
With over Ä7bn worth of projects in the pipeline, the infrastructure division is at the forefront of technological innovation. Its global reach and integrated model provide a solid platform to capture future growth in its key strategic markets, benefiting from the increasing formulas of PPP worldwide.
Acciona is a “total solution provider” in the water sector, specialising in the design, construction and management of drinking water and sewage treatment plants, providing tertiary treatment for reuse and reverse osmosis desalination plants. It currently has an order book worth Ä4.4bn and provides water to 50 million people on
five continents.
With a market capitalisation of over Ä5.3bn, its consolidated revenues and EBITDA in 2009 reached Ä6.5bn and Ä1bn, respectively. The group invested Ä4.2bn throughout the year. The market recognises that the business model represents a strategic position with great potential and the total annual compounded shareholder return since Acciona started trading back in 1997 stands at 20 percent, ranking number 2 in IBEX35 index for the period.
Acciona’s history is a history of adaptation. Its management has not lost sight of the fact that many of the most important opportunities and successes of the company came about during challenging and changing environments.
The company has proven its ability to adapt its own structure and to meet rapidly shifting market conditions, constantly identifying new business opportunities from a pioneer perspective.
The company played a large part in building the Spanish energy industry and transport infrastructure of the 60’s & 70’s. Throughout the 80’s, Acciona started its diversification strategy, shifting its focus from its construction origins to enable its positioning in businesses of a diverse nature, and cyclicality, with accelerated growth. During this period, Acciona entered into the urban services and real estate industries. In the 90’s, it founded in consortium Airtel, the first independent mobile telecom operator, today Vodafone Spain. During the decade, Acciona was the first non-utility company to undertake a renewable energy strategy. Later in the 90’s it was the first mover in the consolidation of the Spanish construction sector through a reverse merger of Entrecanales & Tavora with Cubiertas & MZOV, which together formed the current Acciona.
The decade of the 00’s was the turning point in the transforming process of the company. José Manuel Entrecanales was appointed chairman in 2004, focusing the company into its three pillars for future growth: infrastructure, energy and water together with its international expansion.
Sustainability, innovation
Acciona’s constant evolution from private to public, from the domestic to the global market and from the civil construction to the global developer and service provider, has not changed its values and DNA: sustainability and innovation. Sustainability is at the heart of Acciona’s strategy.
Acciona exercises its entire activity based on index values of sustainability, contributing to the wellbeing of society and environmental balance, across the range of its lines of business: infrastructures, renewable energies, real estate, logistics and transport, water and environmental services.
The company’s business model is none other than to lead the transition towards sustainable development from the front and by innovating. Acciona contributes to building a development model that does not threaten the ecological limits of the planet and which promotes social cohesion. It gives a sustainable solution to some of the most difficult challenges faced by humanity: the creation of infrastructure for economic development and social organisation, the definition of a new global energy architecture and to extend and improve the availability of water. As a matter of fact, it has been at the DNA of its activity since its foundation.
Looking ahead
Global challenges will become the key strategic drivers for Acciona’s business and its innovation strategy.
With the population growing by 50 percent, up to 9.2 billion people by 2050, and a well deserved aspiration to better living standards in the developing world and hence, an untenable increase in demand of new goods and services per capita is to be expected. The developed world needs to hugely reduce its social footprint to make room for the developing world’s ever-increasing demand for resources.
One of the main challenges the world faces in this context is the fact that our current energy model is not viable in the long term. Multiple factors are challenging the global energy outlook, fuelling a trend towards renewable energy. A model essentially based on fossil fuels and insecurity of supply, coupled with a growing demand, ambitious energy policies and growing climate change concerns, is unsustainable.
But urban concentration, expected to absorb two-thirds of the world’s population by 2050, will also require new infrastructures for transport, waste, housing, health, education, water sanitation and others. More than 1.3 billion people today lack access to clean drinking water. By 2025, according to UN projections, more than one-third of humanity (2.8 billion people) will be suffering from water stress. Acciona’s future growth will also focus on developing the necessary infrastructure for good living standards and on providing solutions to the water problem.
The globalisation of the combined offer of energy, infrastructure and water is the natural path of expansion in the immediate future. These basic needs to which Acciona provides the solutions and to which it seeks alternatives are global.
Acciona is in a privileged position for providing solutions to many of the most urgent world challenges. However, Acciona’s plans for growth and to contribute to sustainability go beyond the field of energy, infrastructure and water. José Manuel Entrecanales, in the recent Investor Day held in March of this year, asked “not to categorise Acciona exclusively within the energy, the infrastructure or the water sectors and to see the company as a global unit aiming to provide society with solutions to its more daunting challenges while maximising growth and returns.”
After an incredible story of adaptation and success, Acciona’s track record and experience endorses optimism over its future.
While it is impossible to predict how the operating environment will unfold, the company remains confident that it will “adapt in a sustainable way” to new global challenges.
