Juan Lladó Arburúa (Madrid, 1961) has been the president of Técnicas Reunidas since 2020, a company founded in the Madrid district of Chamberí 60 years ago and which now has a large, modern headquarters on the outskirts of the capital and 6,500 employees, most of them engineers, who develop projects all over the world. Lladó, son of two-time Suárez minister José Lladó Fernández-Urrutia, the second of five brothers, joined the management of Técnicas Reunidas in 1998. From banking – Citibank and Argentaria – to construction and engineering. A leap. Lladó has had to manage a bad patch. In 2022, Técnicas Reunidas had to be rescued by the State with 340 million euros through the State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI). Two years later, the company, which is key to the development of the country's energy system – nuclear and gas plants – is working to participate in the energy transition business – «a revolution», says Lladó. The firm's strategy, explains its president, is «to return to pure engineering to go from being a construction and services company to essentially a services company». The commitment: to multiply its operating profit (ebit) by 2.5 times in the next five years – up to 360 million euros – and distribute dividends in 2026; the objective: to return to the Olympus of the Stock Market, the Ibex 35, from which it left in 2019. «We have been through a bad patch,» Lladó acknowledges. «The journey of the pandemic, for us, was longer than for others. The market stopped in 2020 and it was two years, 2020 and 2021, that caused us a very serious injury. But the person who is able to manage a bad streak is also a better manager and has a better company.” Logically, better results cannot be obtained with the same strategies. Lladó knows this. “In the last four years our strategy has been defensive; and with defensive strategies you can win some battles, but you don’t win wars. We are going to go on the offensive to grow in what we are good at and create a very powerful engineering services unit.” If the plans of Lladó and its CEO Eduardo San Miguel are fulfilled, at least 10% of the turnover in 2028 will come from that source.
Offensive
The batteries for Técnicas Reunidas' offensive are distributed by a roadmap that the company has named SALTA. The plan includes a new organizational model with five business units: engineering and services; energy; North America; Europe; and the Middle East-Asia Pacific. With the new organization, the group hopes to set the gross profit margin at 8% in 2028, compared to the 4% achieved at the end of 2023. Double the profitability with a stable cash flow. The results are good. Those for the first half of the year – 1,003 million in turnover (13% more), 10,000 million in projects and 333 million in cash – have exceeded the forecasts of most analysts. According to Renta 4, “they confirm that the recovery of margins seen since 2022 is structural.”“We want to be better,” says the president of Técnicas Reunidas, “that is why we have announced that we will double the results in 2028. I am sure that we will return to the Ibex 35. In these times of transition and energy revolution [el Ibex] “We need a technology company like ours. It is not an ambition. It is a certainty.” The key issues at the moment are, above all, the energy transition and the search for business in the US. Over the last four years, the company has hired 300 million man hours in energy transition. Translated, this means the work of 1,000 engineers specialising in changing the energy model. The proposal for the energy transition – decarbonisation and respect for the environment – is called TRACK. Técnicas Reunidas is participating in the development of projects related to hydrogen and ammonia in Spain and Norway. There are new horizons, but there is no radical change of direction. The company is building the country’s first regasification plant in Germany and, together with RWE, is planning viable combined cycles for hydrogen as well, and in the port of Antwerp (Belgium) it is working on the largest petrochemical plant in Europe together with the British company Ineos. “We are the only engineering company that works with the four gas turbine technologists.” They are Ansaldo, Jena Electric, Mitsubishi and Siemens. As we all know, a good partner is a treasure. With that in mind, last year Técnicas formalized an alliance with the Chinese giant Sinopec Engineering Group to execute refining, petrochemical, natural gas and transition projects around the world. The partnership has yielded good results in the Middle East, the geographic area that facilitated the company's growth between 2006 and 2015 and which is still key to cash generation. «Sinopec's is not an investment agreement and it is not a technology exchange agreement,» explains Lladó, «it is about bidding together in markets where we can be complementary.» Not all of them are. Today, the red pin that indicates the point of growth is on the US. Técnicas Reunidas works in the country for two giants —Exxon and Conoco—; it has big plans —and upcoming announcements— in the industrial zone of the Gulf of Mexico (Louisiana and Texas), and great expectations in the decarbonization business. The horizon may be promising, but it is not completely clear. Técnicas Reunidas faces claims from clients and suppliers in Algeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Finland for an amount of 1,553 million. “The figure is alarming because of its size,” admits the manager, “but it does not alarm the auditors or the lawyers; it does not alarm us either. In our business, with large projects, there is always room for alarming claims. It does not mean that they are alarming; we do have to publish them. In history, we have resolved all our disputes.” A question of trust and also of experience. The Lladó family has been the company’s largest shareholder (more than 30%) since the beginning, together with investors such as Cobas (5.2%), the management company of Francisco García Paramés. “We are not a typical family business,” clarifies Lladó. The founder, José Lladó, never had more than 37%. Control was held by banks. First Banco de Bilbao and Banco Urquijo, and later Santander and BBVA. “The company,” explains its president, “was always audited and transparent. It was never perceived as a family business. The future lies in being a more professional company, with independent and depersonalized management.” And, above all, with engineers. Técnicas Reunidas boasts of its talent pool. “When we merged with Initec (SEPI) [año 2000] We were 1,000, but we grew and trained well.” Today, the company employs 6,500 workers. It is the second company in Spain in engineering recruitment. Follow all the information on Economy and Business on Facebook and Twitter. Xor in our weekly newsletter