VINCI - 2005 annual report

EUROVIA / BUSINESS REPORT
Brisk growth and boosted
production capacities
Following strong growth in 2004 and despite major price pressures on petroleum
products, Eurovia’s business activity again grew substantially in 2005
(+12.2%) and the company recorded a further increase in operating profi t
from ordinary activities (+8.2%), which now stands at 3.6% of revenue.
Revenue
+12.2 %
Operating profi t
from ordinary activities
+8.2 %
70
VINCI 2005 ANNUAL REPORT
These satisfactory results refl ect a strategy that combines Eurovia’s strong
roots on its markets, vertical integration of its various business lines, an innovation
policy that strengthens the company’s competitiveness and stepped-up
technical, commercial and managerial synergies among its various entities.
On all of its markets, Eurovia makes the most of long-term trends, leveraging
its broad, diversifi ed expertise. The company’s projects are increasingly global
and complex, extending beyond pavements and surfacings to include a wide
variety of related competencies in areas such as wastewater collection systems,
waterproofi ng, minor civil engineering works and landscaping. Meanwhile
Eurovia is responding to the growing demand for outsourced management
and comprehensive maintenance of road networks under multi-year contracts.
Moreover, Eurovia’s expertise in environmentally friendly products and
processes, backed by its research centre in Bordeaux-Mérignac, provides
a strong competitive advantage in markets – particularly those relating to major
public infrastructure projects – in which sustainable development requirements
are increasingly decisive.
These changes consolidate Eurovia’s position as an urban developer and
major transport infrastructure builder capable of devising integrated solutions
for complex projects such as re-routing and redeveloping utility networks,
integrating transport infrastructure into the living environment and improving
comfort and safety, etc. The company’s participation in a large number of
tramway development projects in France and in the construction of major
motorway and railway links in Europe and North America are cases in point.
Meanwhile Eurovia continued in 2005 to strengthen its aggregate production
capabilities by acquiring several companies that operate quarries in France,
the Czech Republic and Canada and produce a total of 4 million tonnes
(Group share) per year. Eurovia continued to expand its industrial plant
and equipment at European level with the opening of a major construction
materials storage, processing and trading centre in the port of Antwerp, Belgium
(see page 72).