OHL Brasil Eyes Airport Pacts Ahead of Sports Events

Spanish builder Obrascon Huarte Lain SA’s Brazilian unit is interested in contracts to construct and operate airports as Latin America’s biggest economy improves its infrastructure ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.

“It’s a sector that interests and we will definitely analyze opportunities,” Obrascon Huarte Lain Brasil SA’s Chief Financial Officer Francisco Leonardo Moura da Costa said in a telephone interview from Sao Paulo yesterday. “We are very optimistic to see the government discussing the possibility of auctioning licenses for airports.”

Brazil’s government is considering auctioning concessions to build new and operate existing airports as it expects the volume of travelers to increase amid the fastest economic growth in two decades. Rio de Janeiro’s airports must be improved to avoid “a disaster” as visitors arrive for the World Cup and Olympics, Rio Governor Sergio Cabral said Dec. 17.

OHL Concesiones Mexico SA, the Mexican unit of Madrid-based OHL, has a 49 percent stake in the operator of the Toluca airport outside Mexico City, where it manages services such as parking lots and passenger areas, as well as the finger systems at the airport’s gates, he said.

“In this market we don’t really create the opportunities; they have to appear in the form of concession licensing projects,” da Costa said. “We believe this year will be very active for the sector here in Brazi.”

Sao Paulo-based OHL Brasil acquired four licenses to run state highways in Sao Paulo between 1999 and 2006, and five licenses to operate federal highways, which were acquired in an auction in 2007. It operates roads linking Brazil’s richest states, including Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais.

About 60 percent of the country’s freight travels by truck compared with 16 percent in the U.S., according to the Brazilian Association of Grain Exporters.

OHL will probably bid in a licensing auction of federal highways which may take place this year, da Costa added.