FCC sees net profit up 38 percent in 2007

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By Carlos Ruano

BARCELONA, Spain, June 28 (Reuters) - Spanish infrastructure company FCC (FCC.MC) said it expects its net profit to grow 38 percent this year after booking gains of more than 200 million euros ($269 million) when its property arm Realia listed.

New acquisitions would push revenues 40 percent higher to 13.73 billion euros and EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) up 42 percent to 1.96 billion, FCC said before a shareholders meeting on Thursday.

"Our forecasts are always conservative and normally we beat them easily," Chief Executive Rafael Montes told reporters.

FCC (Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas) has invested five billion euros to diversify geographically and by sector, buying into cement in Spain and services in Britain and Austria.

FCC said it had already met the targets it had set for early 2008 in its strategic plan and hoped to present a new plan -- for both organic growth and acquisitions -- in the first quarter of next year.

The company said it expected to close this year with debt at 2.5 times EBITDA, which Montes said was well below the sector average and gave FCC room to invest more in the future.

Montes said FCC would not follow other Spanish construction companies that have been buying into the electricity sector to diversify out of the cyclical building business as a decade-long building boom loses steam.

Montes said he was satisfied with Realia's (RLIA.MC) initial public offering earlier this month, despite the fact the property firm had to slash its IPO price to entice investors nervous about Spanish real estate.

FCC controls Realia with savings bank Caja Madrid and consolidates the property company's results. It cashed in about 300 million euros on Realia's IPO.

"The price was a consequence of the moment in the market and I'm convinced the stock is going to rise a lot on the bourse," he said, adding that Realia expected to close the year with sales of 900 million euros and EBITDA of 400 million.

He also said Globalvia, a concessions company owned by FCC and Caja Madrid, would also likely list in about four or five years once it had grown a bit more.

Sources close to the company said Globalvia was close to signing a 400 million-euro motorway deal in Mexico.

Montes also said he knew of no reason for FCC's stock to be down about 12 percent so far this year, squeezing its market capitalisation to 8.8 billion euros.