Porto, Feb. 27, 2025 (Lusa) - Mota-Engil remains focused on prioritising profitability over growth, its chairman said on Thursday, forecasting an increase in turnover this year around the 7% achieved in 2024, when the group recorded its best results ever.
"As for turnover this year, we're going to have single-digit growth, below 10%. From 2023 to 2024 we grew by 7% and this year I'd say it will be more or less around that figure, certainly below 10%. Because, once again, the aim is to prioritise profitability and not growth," said Carlos Mota Santos in an interview with the Lusa news agency.
With regard to profitability, he said that "the forecast in the business plan for 2026 is a net profitability of 3%, so it will be on the way to 3%".
The chairman and CEO of Mota-Engil emphasised that "the very interesting results" obtained by the engineering and construction group last year - in which attributable profit increased by 8% to €123 million and turnover rose by 7% to €5.951 billion (+7%) - along with the volume and quality of the order book, allow it to be "even more selective in the future" and continue to improve balance sheet ratios.
He said that, given this and the fact that some of the targets set for 2026 have already been reached, it was decided to move forward to this year the drawing up of a new strategic plan with objectives up to 2030.
Regarding the 2024 financial year, Carlos Mota Santos said that "all the business areas contributed, some with more volume, others with more profitability", to the results obtained, considering that "this diversity in geographical terms is one of the group's most important values".
"I would say that we are a unique group because we are present in a strong and diversified Latin America, in Africa, not just Lusophone Africa, but in sub-Saharan Africa in general, and then with a very strong activity in some particular areas, where I would highlight contract mining, which is increasingly important and is starting to have an impact not only in terms of volume but above all in terms of profitability," he said.
"In other words," he added, "the strong investment we've made over the last three years is beginning to show why we were right to invest in this area [contract mining].
Geographically, Mota-Engil's president noted that "in terms of volume, Latin America continued to be the major contributor", but Africa stood out "above all from the point of view of profitability, with a strong contribution from the engineering and construction area, but above all from industrial engineering", where the group is "performing very strongly both in terms of volume and, above all, profitability".
Given this "growth cycle" in Africa and the expected slowdown in Latin America (particularly in Mexico), the CEO predicts that by 2025, "there will be a balance between the two regions" in terms of contribution to turnover.
This year, Carlos Mota Santos highlights Mota-Engil's interest in the second batch of the high-speed railway in the Portuguese market, to which he said the company will present itself "as competitively as possible" and the commitment to the new Mota-Engil Energy business area.
An area which, he explained, "aims to use Mota-Engil's own business, namely the environmental business, to look for new ways of creating and extracting greater value, such as “waste to energy”", an "important area" since the group also operates in the treatment of solid urban waste.
Regarding investment, after the €511 million invested in 2024, mainly in the areas of the environment and industrial engineering, Mota-Engil is aiming for a lower figure this year, around 7% of turnover.
"We won't need such a large investment in industrial engineering because most contracts have already started, and we don't expect such significant investment needs this year. On the other hand, the environment is an ongoing investment activity," said the CEO.
PD/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
