Mota-Engil Africa expects flat revenues as it reaches beyond Angola

Mota-Engil Africa, the Africa-focused unit of Portugal’s largest builder, said it expected turnover to be flat this year as it continued to diversify away from its traditional home market of Angola.

Posting its first annual results since listing in Amsterdam last November, the company said on Monday it had made earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 261 million euros ($290 million) in 2014 off turnover of 1.0 billion euros.

The company stuck to earlier guidance that EBITDA margins would fall to 20 percent in 2015 from last year’s level of 25 percent.

The company said it was strengthening its position in southern Africa, where its project backlog of 709 million euros already exceeds its 571 million euro backlog in Angola.

It also won business in new markets in west and east Africa in 2014, including Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

“The backlog (is) improving and becoming more geographically diversified,” the company said in a statement.

Lisbon-based Mota-Engil listed 20 percent of its African subsidiary’s shares in Amsterdam last November, taking advantage of the Netherlands’ record of favourable tax treatment of countries which maintain headquarters in the country while keeping their activities elsewhere.

Recent projects include being part of a consortium building a bridge over the Zambezi river in the city of Tete in Mozambique.

Mota-Engil Africa had planned a flotation in London but this was abandoned last July due to deteriorating sentiment for Portuguese stocks following the crisis around Banco Espirito Santo, rescued by the state last year.

The company said it would continue to consider transactions that could unlock value and increase liquidity in the company’s shares. (Reporting By Thomas Escritt; Editing by Chris Reese)

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Source: AfricaMetro

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