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MADRID, May 14 (Reuters) - Spanish builder ACS on Tuesday posted a 8% rise in first-quarter net profit, as the company continues to benefit from its infrastructure contracts in North America and from toll-road businesses.
The company booked a net attributable profit of 177 million euros ($191.11 million), above the average of analysts' expectations of 172.5 million euros in an LSEG survey.
Its first-quarter revenues of 8.7 billion euros ($9.39 billion) rose 8% from the same period last year, slightly exceeding the 8.6 billion euros forecast by analysts.
The company's activities in North America, which include large-scale data centres in several U.S. states, battery plants and climate resilience contracts, accounted for 57% of total revenues.
Abertis, one of the world's largest toll road operators in which ACS holds a 50% stake, added 41 million euros to the quarterly net profit as average traffic increased.
ACS told investors last month that it
plans to expand
its services in North America and Europe to provide engineering solutions for energy, digital and hi-tech projects, while continuing to focus on its core business of infrastructure such as toll roads.
ACS expects its annual profit to reach between 850 million and 1 billion euros by 2026, up from 780 million last year.
The company plans to invest around 2 billion euros in creating a portfolio of data centres and infrastructure related to artificial intelligence and 5G technology as part of a wider plan to spend around 4 billion euros by 2030 to develop and operate in new sectors such as green energy infrastructures.
