GRIRecord optimism among infrastructure leaders
Almost 72% of those heard by the GRI Barometer expect good results for their companies, and 64% for the industry.
The GRI Infra Club barometer shows that infrastructure leaders in Brazil are in a good mood. The survey, which has been being carried out since 2015, registered its most favorable result in March in three of the aspects addressed: the companies’ performance perspectives, performance perspectives for the industry, and expectations for the economy.
“What the statistics show is exactly what we see in our day-to-day interactions with senior executives and infrastructure investors in the country,” says Pedro Nicolau, global head of the GRI Club for the Infrastructure sector.
Almost 72% of those who were heard say that their companies expect to have good or excellent results in the upcoming 12 months. So far, those expressing this view had never been above 66.1% a year ago.
In addition, 64.4% believe that the performance of the industry as a whole tends to be positive in the year ahead. This is almost threefold September 2018 results (22.3%), when the last survey was held, and practically two times above the best previous indicator (36.4%, in September 2016).
As for the Brazilian economy as a whole, the GRI Barometer registered a surge - from 40.2% six months ago to 85.3% now - among those who believe that the Brazilian GDP will grow significantly in the near future. This is 4.4 percentage points above the highest result that had been seen in the historical series of the survey (80.9% in March 2017).
The market’s optimism is directly related to the onset of the new administrations at the federal and State levels. Most of the players (88.6%) believe that the impact of the elections held in late 2018 tend to be positive. And more: 94.0% believe the effects tend to be long lasting. Most of the leaders GRI spoke to believe that these impacts will be of medium proportions and, to 28.7%, they will be high.
Appetite for investments
Faced with these expectations, the share of infrastructure leaders reporting that their companies are currently investing and/or expanding business also rose and now stands at 50.0%. On the other hand, 44.8% say that their companies’ current posture is more cautious, and that they prefer to observe the scenario before making decisions.
Insofar as mergers & acquisitions and consolidations are concerned, the preferred segments are currently, in order, power generation (an area that remains at the top of the ranking), power transmission (up a position compared to the last survey), and airports (rising from fifth to third place).
When it comes to concessions and public-private partnerships (PPPs), the rise and fall of preferences is even greater compared with the previous GRI Barometer estimates. On the podium, only sanitation stood at the same position as in the previous survey (second); airports are back on the top of the ranking, a position they had lost a year ago; highways are now up to third place; and power transmission slipped from the first to the fourth position.
The GRI Club Infra barometer shows the mood of the infrastructure leaders active in Brazil every six months. In all, 116 players were heard in this round of the survey, held in early March.
