The German group saw a 36% rise in pre-tax profit to €607.5m year-on-year, with €958.8m in EBITDA and a 12.9% increase in new orders to €21.4bn for the same period.
Chief executive officer Marcelino Fernández Verdes said: “The future for Hochtief’s core businesses of construction, mining, services and PPPs remains very positive. We have identified a pipeline of relevant projects worth over €420bn coming to our markets in North America, Asia Pacific and Europe for 2017-2020.”
Hochtief has recently launched a counterbid for the takeover of Abertis, challenging an offer from Italian road operator Atlantia. The firm estimates that the combined group would benefit from a €200bn PPP investment pipeline across core markets between 2018 and 2021.
Fernández Verdes added: “Our positioning as a leader in greenfield PPP project development focused on the higher-growth developed markets of USA, Canada and Australia, as well as Europe, would complement and strengthen Abertis by providing a growth platform to expand and diversify its brownfield concessions portfolio.”
Last week, Fernández Verdes suggested that there is huge potential for new PPP deals across Australia in 2018.