Five years after the collapse of the Spanish property sector, Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, has snapped up a Euro 113.5 million (approximately 6%) stake in Spanish construction and services group FCC.
FCC shares were sent soaring in early trading on Tuesday, and their value increased by nearly 12pc to €17.55.
The international construction and water and waste services group announced that the stake had been acquired by "one or more entities linked to William H. Gates III", making him the second-largest shareholder after the group’s president, Esther Koplowitz.
FCC has been diversifying away from Spain in recent years and in July it announced a €6.07 billion project to build three metro lines in Riyadh. Other worldwide projects include the rebuilding of the historic 1960s Gerald Desmond bridge in Los Angeles, and the construction of a metro in Panama, the first of its kind in Central America.
However, despite shifting its focus away from Spain and it’s diversification into other countries and projects, FCC announced a loss of €607.6 million in the first two financial quarters of 2013, in comparison with a net profit of Euro 53.4 million just one year earlier. The 2013 loss has been largely attributed to the collapse of the Austrian subsidiary Alpine Bau.
Filed under: http://www.theleader.info/article/41130/
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