To assess whether FERROVIAL SA is suitable to issue hybrid bonds, we need to evaluate its financial profile against the typical criteria for hybrid bond issuers. Hybrid bonds are deeply subordinated, perpetual or long-dated instruments that blend debt and equity characteristics. They are typically issued by investment-grade companies in capital-intensive industries (like utilities, infrastructure, and telecoms) that require long-term financing to match the duration of their assets, while also seeking to achieve equity credit from rating agencies to manage leverage ratios. 1. **Industry and Asset Profile**: Ferrovial is a major infrastructure and construction company. Its balance sheet shows massive long-term investments in infrastructure projects (€13.67 billion in 2022). This capital-intensive, long-duration asset base makes it naturally suitable for long-dated or perpetual financing like hybrid bonds, which help match the duration of liabilities to assets. 2. **Credit Quality and Leverage**: Hybrid bonds are almost exclusively an investment-grade instrument. While we don't have explicit credit ratings in the data, we can gauge financial health: - **Profitability**: EBITDA (approximated as Operating Profit + D&A = €423m + €299m) is around €722m on €7.55b revenue. - **Leverage**: Net debt (Total financial borrowings of ~€11.9b noncurrent + €0.95b current minus ~€5.13b cash) is roughly €7.7b. Total Equity is €6.35b. The Debt/Equity ratio is slightly over 1.2x, and Net Debt/EBITDA is over 10x. This indicates that the company is already highly leveraged. For a highly leveraged company, issuing hybrids is a way to secure equity credit from agencies (typically 50% equity credit) to prevent downgrades, making it a strategically relevant instrument for them. 3. **Historical Precedent and Capacity**: The equity statement explicitly lists "Perpetual Subordinated Bonds" within the equity section (under "Other Equity Securities" and "Reserves"), with changes recognized in the period. This proves the company already has outstanding hybrid capital instruments, is familiar with the market, and has the structural capacity to issue more. 4. **Interest Coverage**: Finance costs were €320m against operating profit of €423m, resulting in an interest coverage ratio of around 1.3x. While this is tight, it is typical for infrastructure concessionaires whose project finance debt is often non-recourse at the corporate level (evidenced by the separately classified infrastructure project debt and cash flows). Given Ferrovial's infrastructure business model, its need to optimize its capital structure and achieve equity credit to manage its high leverage, and its existing track record of issuing perpetual subordinated bonds, the company is strongly suitable to issue hybrid bonds. Strongly Suitable