Type | Sociedad Anónima |
---|---|
Traded as | BMAD: OHL |
Industry | Construction |
Founded | 1999 |
Headquarters | Madrid, Spain |
Key people | Juan-Miguel Villar Mir (Chairman and CEO) |
Products | Infrastructure construction, toll-road and other transport concessions, residential and non-residential property |
Revenue | €4.910 billion (2010)[1] |
Operating income | €700.1 million (2010)[1] |
Profit | €195.6 million (2010)[1] |
Total assets | €12.60 billion (end 2010)[1] |
Total equity | €2.025 billion (end 2010)[1] |
Employees | 22,580 (average, 2010)[1] |
Website | www.ohl.es |
Obrascón Huarte Lain, S.A. (OHL) is an Spanish-based multinational construction and civil engineering company. The company is involved in infrastructure and commercial property construction, as well as homebuilding and the operation of toll road and other transport concessions. In the latter, the group is particularly active in Brazil through its majority-owned subsidiary OHL Brasil. OHL also has a majority-owned American subsidiary called Tower-OHL Group which is based in Miami, Florida.
OHL was founded by the $900 million merger in 1999 of the firms Obrascón-Huarte and Construcciones Lain.[2] Since July 2008 the company has been a constituent of the benchmark IBEX 35 stock market index on the Bolsa de Madrid.
The company's roots stretch back to May 1911 and the foundation of Sociedad General de Obras y Construcciones Obrascón, S.A., whose first project was the construction of two wharfs in the Port of Lisbon.[3] The company grew over the decades, being acquired first by the Banco de Bilbao in 1953 and then by Altos Hornos de Vizcaya 20 years later.[2] Obrascón fell into financial difficulties in the late 1980s, however, and was bought from bankruptcy for one penny in 1987 by Juan-Miguel Villar Mir,[4] who remains the company's chairman today. Villar turned around the firm's fortunes and it listed on the Bolsa de Madrid in 1991.[2]
In 1998 Obrascón merged with its larger, but struggling, rival Huarte, a major construction firm established in Pamplona in 1927.[2] The following year a further merger was conducted with Construcciones Lain, a publicly-traded firm originally founded as the Spanish arm of John Laing Construction in 1963.[2] This deal created the Obrascón Huarte Lain group in its current form.
On November 30, 2010 OHL acquired 50.1% of the US construction company Judlau Contracting, Inc., specialized in civil engineering with headquarters operations in the state of New York.