Ferrovial SE (FER): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $58.78, Ferrovial SE (FER) is priced for -4.2% growth. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-07-26.

Generated: 2026-08-30 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/FER

Headline

FieldValue
TickerFER
CompanyFerrovial SE
Sector / IndustryIndustrials
Current price$58.78/sh
CompositionConstruction 80% / Highways 14% / Airports 1% / Energy 4% / Other activities 5% / Adjustments (inter-segment eliminations) -3%

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basiswhole-company
Implied growth-4.2%
Multiple paid14x operating income

Solve inputs: computed at a 7.8% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage.

How unusual the bet is: n/a

ReferenceValue
cohort percentile (of 225 peers)18

Valuation X-Ray

Asset, earnings-power and peer-multiple models all land far below the price; ONLY the growth-DCF reaches it. The bet is durable compounding the static frames structurally cannot price (a moat/durability premium).

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset2.81x4expensive
Earnings3.30x3expensive
Relative2.40x2expensive
Growth0.87x3justifies

Families that justify the price: Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings, Relative

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 7.9%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=12)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$77.080.76xyesFCF base $2.2B, growth 8% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 7.9%, 6yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$67.920.87xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 95.9x / 97.9x / 99.9x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr
Relative ValuationRelativenoP/E 22.77x (blended: static sector reference 18x + trailing (TTM) 34x), scenarios: 19.0x / 22.8x / 26.5x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 26.4x
Simple DDMGrowthno
Two-Stage DDMGrowthno
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$18.753.13xyesBV/sh $11.56, ROE (TTM) 15.0%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$23.602.49xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$49.631.18xyesRev $10.5B, growth 8% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 3.4x / 4.0x / 4.7x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$16.173.64xyesEPS $1.35, growth 2% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=16.95 (Overvalued)
Margin TrajectoryGrowthno
Earnings Power ValueEarnings$2.0728.40xyesNormalized EBIT (4y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $1.13B × (1−21%) / WACC 7.9% → EPV (no growth) (excluded from median)
Residual IncomeAsset$24.212.43xyesBV $11.56 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 15.0% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr
Graham NumberAsset$18.723.14xyes√(22.5 × EPS $1.35 × BVPS $11.56) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelativenoEBITDA $0.53B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x
FCF YieldEarnings$17.803.30xyesFCF $2093.5M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarningsno
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$43.491.35xyesEPS $1.35 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/BAssetno
P/Sales SectorRelativenoRevenue $10.46B × sector P/S 2.5x
PEG Fair ValueRelative$50.541.16xyesEPS $1.35 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x
Earnings YieldEarnings$14.574.03xyesEPS $1.35 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelativeno
Clinical Phase NPVGrowthno
MertonAssetno
V5 Mechanicalno

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

One or more material disclosed units has unresolved economics. Unknown/general is not evidence of homogeneity: segment SOTP is primary but incomplete, consolidated cash flow may remain only a secondary cross-check when every unit shares an enterprise basis, and one sector multiple or target margin is withheld.

UnitRoleValuation basisRevenueReported profitValue evidenceStatus
ConstructionoperatingenterpriseEUR 7.7Bwithheldunresolved no unit value
HighwaysoperatingenterpriseEUR 1.4Bwithheldunresolved no unit value
AirportsoperatingenterpriseEUR 0.1Bwithheldunresolved no unit value
EnergyoperatingenterpriseEUR 0.3Bwithheldunresolved no unit value

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

FieldValue
Net debt$7.2b
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)2.51x
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)1.98x
Burning cashno

Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

A toll road is permission to charge whatever drivers will pay for time, inside limits someone wrote into a contract decades ago. Ferrovial's Canadian highway states the mechanism without apology in the annual report: "This system makes it possible for us to optimize revenues by adjusting toll fees to the time savings offered to drivers by the toll highway." Drivers are not buying road. They are buying minutes, and minutes get more expensive every year. The same filing puts the record at "The asset's revenue compound annual growth rate for the 2009 to 2025 period is 8.3%." Sixteen years is long enough to distinguish a pricing mechanism from a good run.

The first quarter of 2026 showed the mechanism working in isolation. Traffic on the Canadian road rose 8.2%, measured in vehicle kilometres, while toll revenue rose 22.1% and average revenue per trip rose 12.4% to 18.9 Canadian dollars. Most of the growth came from the tariff, not from more cars. That is the difference between an infrastructure asset and a transport business.

The five American express lanes run a sharper version of the same idea. They sit alongside free lanes and price against the congestion in them, so the product improves precisely when the alternative gets worse. In the first quarter revenue per transaction rose 18.3% on the NTE road, 11.5% on LBJ and 17.3% on NTE 35W, on transaction counts that barely moved. A business whose unit price compounds without needing unit growth is rare, and the geography protecting it cannot be replicated by a competitor with a better balance sheet.

Construction is the part that shows up in the revenue line, and its job is to originate the assets rather than to earn a return of its own. The annual report says so directly: "Cintra also offers synergies with our Construction Business Division subsidiary, Ferrovial Construction, that result in high value creation potential." Even judged on its own, the arm is recovering. Operating profit on the reported segment basis went from 77 million euros in 2023 to 284 million in 2024 to 357 million in 2025, on revenue that grew far more slowly, which is margin repair rather than volume. The pipeline behind it is at a record: "Construction Order Book increased by 4.1% to EUR 17,438 million as of December 31, 2025 from EUR 16,755 million as of December 31, 2024 due to new projects awarded to Webber and Ferrovial Construction (mainly the High Speed 2 Track in UK)."

The last piece is where the money actually goes. Dividends received from equity-accounted companies, classified inside operating activities, came to 502 million euros in 2025 against 363 million in 2024. That is not an accounting result. It is money arriving at the parent from roads it does not consolidate, and it is what funds the buyback and the distribution while the borrowings that built those roads stay where they were raised.

Bear Case

The company that shows up in the accounts is a builder. Four fifths of the revenue, the great majority of the 22,500 employees, and nearly all of the execution risk sit in a construction business that earns single-digit margins in a market the annual report describes as getting harder: "The lack of investment opportunities in some geographies has pushed capital flows towards markets in which we also operate, increasing the competitive tension within those markets and resulting in pressures on prices and profit margins in projects in which the customer risk transfer dynamic is not balanced." The thing being valued is not that company. It is a minority interest in one Canadian highway plus a handful of American express lanes, and a buyer has to take on faith that the rest is not a drag on it.

The arithmetic makes the point without editorial help. Group profit from operating activities was 1,177 million euros in 2025, and 210 million of that came from disposals and impairments rather than from running anything. That is the reported earnings base a mid-forty-billion equity value rests on. Unsurprisingly, the asset-value methods, the earnings-power methods and the peer-multiple methods all land far beneath the current quote. Only the cash-flow methods reach it, and they reach it by projecting the starting base to grow 8% a year through a six-year stage and then compound at 4% forever against an 8% cost of capital. If that terminal assumption softens, nothing else in the toolkit is standing underneath.

The pricing engine that carries the bull case is already showing where its limit sits. First-quarter transactions fell 3.6% on the NTE road, 1.5% on LBJ and 5.6% on the I-77 corridor, and revenue still rose because tariffs rose faster. Tariff can outrun volume for a long time and not forever, and the contracts do not let the operator keep all of the outrun: on I-77 the revenue-share band stepped from 25% to 50% during the quarter, and profitability fell as a direct result. The upside is contractually shared with the grantor at exactly the moment it becomes worth having. The annual report also names the demand risk plainly, warning that "alternative infrastructure, or means of transport could capture users and adversely impact our business, results of operations, and financial condition".

Then there is the shape of the borrowing. Of 10,427 million euros of total group borrowings at the end of 2025, 7,617 million sits inside the project companies, where "The borrowings classified as project borrowings are without recourse to the project shareholders or with recourse limited to the guarantees given." Ring-fencing protects the parent from the projects, which is the comfortable half of the sentence. It also protects the projects from the parent. Distributions upward run through covenants written by project lenders, and a road that trips one keeps its money. The valuation depends on money reaching the top; the structure decides whether it does.

Two smaller items compound the picture. The airports business produced 111 million euros of revenue in 2025 and a reported segment operating result of 284 million, of which 270 million was disposals and impairments, so almost nothing came from operating an airport. And the terminal being built at JFK is the one place where a schedule can move: construction stood at 87% progress in the first quarter, with the contractor communicating a revised target completion for the first phase of fall 2026. Meanwhile the energy division and the residual other activities together lost 178 million euros at the operating line in 2025. None of that is fatal. All of it is subtracted from a valuation that already needs the roads to be perfect.

Valuation

Begin with an accounting fact, because it decides how every ratio below it reads. The most valuable thing this company owns does not appear in its revenue. The 407 ETR is held as an associate, so its tolls, its costs and its borrowings collapse into a single line: 258 million euros of profit from equity-accounted companies in 2025, with the annual report attributing "the contribution to results from 407 ETR (EUR 217 million)" to that one road. Everything else on the income statement is the part of the group that builds and operates, not the part that owns.

So the reported earnings base is a poor lens, and the methods that read it return a poor answer. Revenue was 9,627 million euros in 2025 and profit from operating activities 1,177 million euros on the reported IFRS basis, of which 210 million euros came from disposals and impairments. Strip those and the operating businesses produced 967 million euros. Set that beside an equity value in the mid-forty-billions and the gap is not subtle.

The families of method divide exactly along that fault line. Against the asset-value methods the price carries a premium of roughly 200 percent; against the earnings-power methods, closer to 250 percent; against the peer-multiple methods, a little over 100 percent. Only the forward cash-flow methods reach the quote, and they land modestly above it. The perpetual-growth version gets there in one move: eight percent compounding through a six-year stage, four percent in perpetuity after that, discounted at eight percent. That last pairing does most of the work, and it is an assumption rather than a finding.

The cash flow statement is the more honest witness here, and it says something the earnings line cannot. Operating cash flow was 1,926 million euros in 2025, including 502 million euros of dividends received from equity-accounted companies against 363 million a year earlier. What the roads generate is real and it does reach the parent. It just does not travel through the profit line to get there, which is why every method anchored on reported profit lands low and every method anchored on cash flow lands high.

What the buyer is underwriting, then, is a tariff mechanism rather than a construction book. On the reported segment basis, toll roads converted 1,374 million euros of 2025 revenue into 719 million euros of operating profit before any equity-accounted contribution, while construction converted 7,653 million euros into 357 million euros. Judged against its own cohort, that construction margin is unremarkable: KBR reported a 10.0% operating margin and ACM 6.3%, both above it, while MTZ came in under 1%. The comparison matters less than it looks, because construction is not what the multiple is paid for.

The balance sheet carries the bet in an unusual shape. Total borrowings were 10,427 million euros at the end of 2025, of which 7,617 million sat inside the infrastructure project companies where the lenders' claim stops, and 6,505 million of that belonged to the American toll roads alone. Excluding those projects, the parent finished the first quarter of 2026 with liquid resources 1,218 million euros ahead of its own borrowings. Finance costs across the whole group ran to 365 million euros in 2025, and the projects, not the parent, absorbed most of it. The borrowing that looks heavy on the consolidated page belongs to roads already collecting tolls; the profit that looks thin on the consolidated page is thin because the best asset is filed one line further down.

Catalysts

The first-quarter print on 7 May 2026 set the tone for the year. Group revenue reached 2,098 million euros, up 10.2% on a like-for-like basis, and the growth was concentrated in the roads. The Canadian highway carried 567 million vehicle kilometres, up 8.2%, on toll revenue of 466 million Canadian dollars, up 22.1%, and announced a 500 million Canadian dollar distribution for the second quarter. The American express lanes told the same story in a different register: revenue per transaction rose 18.3% on NTE, 17.3% on NTE 35W and 11.5% on LBJ, while transaction counts were flat or slightly lower. Construction held its line, with an order book of 17,555 million euros at March, described as an all-time high, and a further 1.3 billion euros of pre-awards and contracts pending financial close sitting outside it.

Two project timelines matter into the second half. The New Terminal One at JFK stood at 87% construction progress at the end of the first quarter, with the contractor communicating a revised target completion date for the first phase of fall 2026, and commitments from 30 airlines of which 21 are executed agreements and 9 are letters of intent. Investment through 2025 totalled 978 million euros with 64 million more expected during 2026. Separately, the capacity improvement works on the LBJ corridor, which have been suppressing traffic there, are expected to finish by the end of 2026.

Capital returns ran through the spring, and the shape of them is worth noticing. An interim scrip distribution of 400 million euros in aggregate was declared on 7 May 2026 and set at 0.5578 euros per share on 15 May, payable in shares or in money at the holder's election, with shares the default if no election is made. In parallel, the repurchase programme running since December 2025 had bought 5,072,474 shares for 295.2 million euros by 29 May 2026. One hand issues paper to holders who do nothing; the other buys it back in the market. The company also completed a change of legal form on 30 April 2026, converting from a European Company into a Dutch public limited liability company and becoming Ferrovial N.V., with legal personality, assets and listings unchanged. Second-quarter and first-half results are scheduled for 28 July 2026 after the U.S. market closes, with the management call the following morning.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Construction (reported)

Highways / Airports (reported)

Energy (reported)

Methodology Note

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

Sources

FY2025 Form 20-F segment note, filed February 2026 · Q1 2026 results presentation, May 2026 · FY2025 Form 20-F, filed February 2026 · company press release, May 2026 · company press release, June 2026 · company press release, April 2026 · company press release, July 2026

View the full interactive FER report on boothcheck