An important entry into the luxury home market

The local estate agent Larvia has partnered with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, a move which marks the company’s entry into the luxury homes market. The agreement signed by the two companies came into effect on 2 October 2019, and aims to make them the leaders in the luxury home market in the country. 

They have also stated that they plan to grow and double the size of their operations in Madrid and Barcelona, in addition to expanding throughout the Mediterranean region, in the Balearic Islands and in the Canary Islands. In addition, this new estate agent plans to take advantage of and build on the Berkshire Hathaway group’s extensive customer network in order to offer its services to international buyers.

Awarding of contracts in the United States

Furthermore, the Texas Transport Department (TxDOT) has awarded ACS three contracts for the renovation of motorways in counties in south-east Texas, through Pulice Construction, a subsidiary company of Dragados USA. The task involves building and adding lanes, improving safety and enabling greater capacity to meet the needs of the forecast growth in the population.

In addition, the work will improve intermodal access with Port Freeport in the Gulf of Mexico, making it easier to effect evacuations when hurricanes are expected. The project is valued at 181 million euros. When this project is included, Dragados and its subsidiary, Pulice Construction, is currently involved in 11 projects in the state of Texas.

Barcelona Metro Phase 2, Line 9 Refinancing

Another piece of news for the ACS Group is the refinancing of the debt for Barcelona Metro Phase 2, Line 9 for the sum of 725 million, through its subsidiary Iridium Concesiones de Infraestructuras. This has been put together through a medium-term bank tranche arrangement with Spanish organisations and two long-term private placement agreements with institutional investors in Canada, Germany, Italy, France, United States and Ireland. The project constitutes an iconic asset and at 52 kilometres in length, and with 50 stations, would be the longest automated metro line in Europe.

New Australia train line contract

Likewise, the construction firm ACS, through the Cimic Group, has won the contract to renovate an urban train line in Melbourne, Australia. The project includes the modernisation of the electrical system and rails of the Sunbury line, which is 40 kilometres long and has 15 stations. The work, which will begin this year and is expected to be completed in 2023, is worth 96 million euros.

CPB’s contracts managing director states that they have already gained experience on railway works in other projects in Australia, such as the Melbourne Metro Tunnel, the Sidney Metro, the Brisbane Cross River Rail, the New South Wales Regional Rail, and the Parramatta light railway in Sidney. In mid-September, the company won the contract to construct a new Metro station in Sidney, a project worth 287 million euros.

Lima Airport contract lost

Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), however, was forced to give up one of its biggest Latin American contracts, the extension to Jorge Chávez de Lima Airport, in Peru. The ambitious project involves the design and construction of a second landing strip, as well as a new passenger terminal, development work, access to a business complex, car parks, an energy plant, a new control tower, and a fire-station building.

The budget for this project is 1,300 million euros, for which FCC had won the bid in partnership with the Italian company Impregilo and the United States engineering firm Aecom. Now, the Peruvian authorities have decided to reopen the selection process in order to find a new contractor. The Spanish groups Acciona and Ferrovial are working on a joint bid.

Texas Residual Handling contract renewal

Also in October, FCC won a contract to manage the waste produced by all the treatment plants in Houston, United States. This constitutes the renewal of the first municipal contract awarded to FCC five years ago. This time, Houston Town Hall has put out a tender for a five-year period with a value of approximately 27.5 million euros. For this project, FCC will have 22 lorries, 40 trailers and 4 tanks, and will handle all the water treatment works in a city of 2.3 million inhabitants.

FCC has a presence in the United States through FCC Environmental Services, and it has been awarded 17 contracts via its environmental services division. It recently won a tender to the value of 232 million euros for waste collection in Omaha, Nebraska.

New contracts in the United Kingdom and Italy

In other news, Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) has signed two contracts in Europe with a value of 110 million euros. In Birmingham, in the United Kingdom, CAF will supply 21 trams, and under the contract the number could increase by another 29 vehicles. The contract also includes technical support services and the supply for spare parts for a period of 30 years. The value of the project is estimated at 90 million euros.

In addition, CAF has secured another contract in Venice, Italy, through its subsidiary Solaris. This involves the supply of 30 electric buses and the infrastructure required for charging their batteries. The contract is worth over 20 million euros. 

Spanish groups that didn’t bid on Bogotá’s subway contract

Elsewhere, CAF was one of the Spanish groups that decided not to bid for the construction of Bogotá’s first Metro line, which has a budget of 3,736 million dollars. None of CAF or Sacyr or Acciona had presented a bid by the time the tender process was closed by Bogotá Town Hall. The only consortia to bid were Metro de Bogotá and APCA Transimetro. Metro de Bogotá is made up of the Spanish company FCC Concesiones de Infraestructura and the Mexican companies Carso and Promotora del Desarrollo de América Latina.