16 June 2023

Listing of Ferrovial

Spanish construction company Ferrovial will be listed on the Amsterdam Exchange from today. The introduction is taking place in relative silence. This may have been prompted by the fuss earlier in Spain surrounding its move to and listing in Amsterdam. Even the Spanish prime minister has expressed outrage about it. According to him and other cabinet members, it is a vulgar tax flight to the “tax haven” of the Netherlands, with Ferrovial achieving €40 million a year in tax savings. A reproach that was also made to Italy’s Exor in 2022.

Ferrovial, which makes its money from major infrastructure projects and operating toll roads, among other things, vehemently denies this. The choice of Amsterdam has an entirely different reason, according to company executives. The reason they gave was that it would be much easier to achieve a dual listing with Wall Street from the highly internationally oriented Amsterdam. An important underlying desire since Ferrovial makes most of its money in the United States. And they point out that this certainly does not mean saying goodbye to motherland Spain, where the company started as a railway business in 1952.

Whatever the case, Amsterdam has gained another major stock market fund. With a market capitalisation of €21 billion, it is many times larger than Dutch construction companies on the stock exchange. By comparison: Royal BAM Group, the largest Dutch construction company on the Amsterdam Exchange, has a market capitalisation of about €550 million. Ferrovial is a true multinational, with operations in more than twenty countries and with twenty-four thousand employees around the world. And it will also be operating in the Netherlands. It is currently in the race to build the new nuclear reactor in Petten, for example.