OHLA (Obrascon Huarte Lain, S.A.) (BME: OHLA) reported first-half 2026 results on 13 August, with recurring EBITDA of 116.9 million euros, 39 percent above the same period of 2025, and an EBITDA margin of 6.7 percent. Reported EBITDA was 103.6 million euros. Attributable net profit was 0.5 million euros; excluding what the group calls the temporary and extraordinary impact of the Flaggers litigation, it was 27.1 million euros, against a loss of 29.7 million euros in the first half of 2025.
Group sales including the Services business reached 2.035 billion euros, up 3.4 percent. The Construction division produced EBITDA of 120.1 million euros, up 10.7 percent, on revenue of 1.650 billion euros, up 3.8 percent, lifting its margin on sales to 7.3 percent from 6.8 percent a year earlier. Order book coverage stood at 28.3 months against 26.8 months in the first half of 2025.
Cash and liquidity
OHLA generated 96.4 million euros of cash flow from operations in the second quarter, which it said partially offset the usual seasonal effect of the first quarter. The group closed the half with available liquidity with recourse of 711.3 million euros, compared with 613.0 million euros at the end of March.
The litigation that shaped the number, and the one that closed
The Flaggers case is what separates the reported result from the recurring one. OHLA does not quantify the item beyond the gap between the two profit figures it published, and describes the effect as temporary and extraordinary.
After the close of the half and before the results were presented, the civil chamber of the Spanish Supreme Court fully dismissed the appeals brought against OHLA by several securitisation funds over construction cost overruns on the M-12 motorway serving Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas Airport. The ruling ends a process involving claims of 212 million euros plus 71 million euros in interest, a dispute the company said had followed it for more than a decade.
What the first quarter had already shown
OHLA reported first-quarter results on 25 May 2026. Net profit was 7.8 million euros against a loss of 21.8 million euros a year earlier, EBITDA rose to 48.3 million euros, more than 90 percent above the first quarter of 2025, and Construction EBITDA reached 46.1 million euros, up 43.2 percent. Group revenue was 914.7 million euros, in line with the same quarter of the previous year.
Order intake in the quarter was 1,193.5 million euros, up 48.2 percent, for a book-to-bill ratio of 1.3x, with the New Malaga Hospital the largest award. The short-term order book stood at 8,414.0 million euros, equal to 29.3 months of revenue coverage, against 28.2 months in December 2025, and the total project portfolio reached 10,061.1 million euros, close to double the roughly 5.5 billion euros of the end of 2019.
The 2025 base
The 2025 financial year, reported on 4 March 2026, was the one in which OHLA returned to profit, with net earnings of 1.7 million euros after nearly 21 million euros of costs tied to the recapitalisation plan launched in 2024 and completed in February 2025. EBITDA was 208.1 million euros, up 36.4 percent, operating cash was positive for a third consecutive year at 76 million euros, and the order book closed at a record 9,735 million euros.
Construction EBITDA reached 232.8 million euros, up around 47.4 percent, with the division margin at 7.0 percent against 4.7 percent in 2024. Leverage ended the year at 1.7x against 11.1x in 2020, after 563 million euros of debt repaid since that year. Under the 2025 to 2029 strategic plan announced in May, the group targets annual overhead savings of 40 million euros.
Two legacy disputes closed in that year. The Sidra arbitration ended with a final impact of 0.5 million euros following an addendum issued by the International Chamber of Commerce in December. In February the same body ruled in the Doha Major Stations arbitration that Qatar Railways Company must pay the joint venture, in which OHLA holds 30 percent, a total of 314.9 million euros.
Analysis: an operating recovery reported alongside a litigation item
The half-year release is the fourth consecutive set of OHLA figures published with an adjusted earnings measure alongside the reported one, the adjustment in each case tied to a legal item. The 2025 results carried the recapitalisation costs and the Sidra and Doha arbitrations. The first half of 2026 carries Flaggers. The gap between 103.6 million euros of reported EBITDA and 116.9 million euros of recurring EBITDA, and between 0.5 million euros of attributable profit and 27.1 million euros excluding the litigation, is the whole distance between the two readings of the period, and the company has not put a figure on the item itself.
The underlying trend does not depend on that adjustment. Construction EBITDA of 120.1 million euros on revenue of 1.650 billion euros, at a 7.3 percent margin against 6.8 percent, is a margin story rather than a volume story: group sales grew 3.4 percent and Construction revenue 3.8 percent, while divisional EBITDA grew 10.7 percent. That is consistent with what the group described in 2025, when the Construction margin moved from 4.7 percent to 7.0 percent on the strength of a better backlog and the overhead reduction programme.
One line moved the other way and is worth holding. Revenue coverage was 29.3 months at the end of the first quarter and 28.3 months at the half, against 28.2 months in December 2025 and 26.8 months a year earlier. Coverage is a ratio of backlog to activity, so it falls when execution outpaces intake, and the half-year release does not publish a first-half order intake figure to set against the 1,193.5 million euros booked in the first quarter.
The Supreme Court ruling on the M-12 is the item with the largest absolute figures attached, 212 million euros of claims plus 71 million euros of interest, and it arrived after the reporting period. It removes a contingency rather than adding earnings. Taken with the Sidra addendum and the Doha award, it means the disputes OHLA inherited from the previous decade are largely resolved, while the litigation weighing on the current income statement is a new one.
The reporting obligation
Article 100 of Ley 6/2023, de 17 de marzo, de los Mercados de Valores y de los Servicios de Inversion requires issuers whose shares or debt securities trade on a regulated market, where Spain is the home member state, to publish and disseminate a half-yearly financial report covering the first six months of the year, within three months of the period end, and to keep it publicly available for at least ten years. It must comprise half-yearly financial statements, an interim management report and responsibility declarations on their content. The Flaggers provision, the first-half order intake and the accounting treatment of the M-12 ruling as a post balance sheet event are the items that document should carry.
