It has been an eventful year for Spanish construction conglomerate FCC Group, with a high-profile investor acquiring a stake in the company and a record contract win in Riyadh.

In October, FCC made global headlines when US-based Microsoft’s founder and chairman, Bill Gates bought a 6 per cent stake in the firm for $148m. On the macroeconomic level, Gates is the latest investor to look to Spain, as its economy takes the first fragile steps of recovery after the financial problems that have engulfed the eurozone.

“In Spain, the [financial] situation has not been good, but the worst has passed,” says Miguel Jurado, managing director of FCC Construccion. “We have reached the bottom.”

Delivering growth

Gates’ investment was a major vote of confidence in FCC’s three-pronged strategy for delivering growth, which will see it become more active in foreign markets, such as Saudi Arabia, with opportunities for contractors to work on major capital investment projects.

“Our CEO [chief executive officer] Juan Bejar has developed a strategic plan for the whole group, not just construction,” says Jurado. “The plan is to concentrate on three core activities: environmental services; water; and infrastructure.”

Infrastructure is the core activity for FCC’s construction business, which Jurado heads. “We are going to concentrate on two areas,” he says. “Construction is a local business, so we must work with good local partners. Also, we can work in specialised areas because we have a very specialised business in Spain, where we have a strong track record on schemes such as high-speed trains, ports, roads, bridges, desalination plants and water treatment facilities. These are projects that add value to the countries we want to work in.”

In the future, 70 per cent of our revenues will be from foreign markets and we will be global and not a Spanish firm

Miguel Jurado, FCC Construccion

The strategy for the construction business is already producing major results. On 28 July, FCC, as the leader of an international consortium, signed the contract to build lines 4, 5 and 6 of the Riyadh Metro scheme. The $7.8bn deal is said to be the largest international construction contract ever secured by a Spanish company and it leverages FCC’s experience on rail projects in Spain together with its focus on partnerships in foreign markets.

“Our strategy allowed us to win the tender for the Riyadh Metro,” says Jurado. “We developed partnerships with South Korea’s Samsung [C&T], the local Freyssinet, France’s Alstom for the rolling stock, Dutch engineering firm Structkon, and Spain’s Typsa.”

With the metro contract signed, attention is now shifting to the delivery of the scheme. “We started the project with the design,” says Jurado. “In the first or second quarter of [2014, we will begin] with the civil works. This is on schedule; we are happy.”

Regional presence

Buoyed by its success on the Riyadh Metro, FCC is actively pursuing more work in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East. In the kingdom, it is competing for work on the Jubail railway, as well as King Abdullah Medical City. In Qatar, it is bidding for work on the elevated sections of the Doha metro scheme, and is eyeing opportunities to build sporting facilities for the Fifa World Cup in 2022.

FCC is also bidding for the new terminal building at Kuwait International Airport. On top of that, it is vying for work on Sheikh Khalifa Medical City in Abu Dhabi, along with the Zayed National Museum and the Guggenheim Museum. In Oman, the firm is looking to work on the sultanate’s upcoming railway schemes.

If FCC is successful and picks up more work in the region it will move closer to achieving its objective of becoming a global construction business with a diverse portfolio of work that should protect it from regional downturns in the future.

“Right now, we have a 50:50 split of international and national business, but things are going to change,” says Jurado. “In the future, 70 per cent of our revenues will be from foreign markets and we will be global and not a Spanish company anymore.”