2022 was a year marked by the political context of Europe, especially Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Instability, fear of supply shortages and dependence on Russian fossil fuels made 2022 a difficult year in terms of supplies and inflation.

By contrast, our European assets performed well from an income standpoint (exceeding the traffic levels of the previous year) and from the point of view of costs (despite the increase in raw material and energy prices).

In view of the limited M&A activity involving toll motorways, we focused mainly on optimising the operation of our European assets.

In 2022, the GDP of the Euro area increased by 3.5% (5.2% in 2021)

Although the OECD initially forecast an expansion of economic activity in the EU in 2023, the inflationary environment, with rising energy prices, forced the European Central Bank to raise interest rates.

These restrictive measures, together with the political environment and some supply chain problems, are leading to lower prospects for economic growth (it is expected to be 0.8% across the EU as a whole).

In coming years, some public-private partnership projects are expected to be implemented in the primary market:

• Germany will be launching an active portfolio of greenfield projects through an availability remuneration scheme. A1 Lotte/Osnab (Munster), A20 (Hamburg) and A44 (Dortmund) are some examples, with a total project cost of over €2,000 million.
• Greece launched the process to re-tender Attiki Odos, the Athens ring road. Other projects are now in the pre-qualification phase (motorway from Thessaloniki to Edesa, and the motorway from Drama to Amphipolis).
• Italy has to re-tender some concessions that will expire soon. In addition to the new tenders, Italy is launching other completely new projects (such as Interconnessione Pedemontana Brebemi, a 566-million-euro concession to build a motorway between the cities of Brescia and Milan).

Other countries with smaller but significant projects are Norway, France, Belgium and the Czech Republic.

As for the secondary market, the activity in merger and acquisition processes is expected to be limited in 2023. The geopolitical landscape, together with high inflation and increased interest rates (which also raise the return demanded by investors) could delay or cancel some processes.

We can see some of the projects recently cancelled on the secondary market, and not much activity is planned (A1 motorway in Germany, AP7 Cartagena-Alicante in Spain and Douro Litoral in Portugal).

The level of activity of corporate operations in the sector was lower in 2022 compared to 2021, continuing the trend of slowing activity in recent years.

Merger and acquisition operations tend to be lower at times of uncertainty or market volatility, and in 2022, we experienced some situations that added to investor uncertainty (growing inflation, rebounding GDP after COVID with a potential recession, ongoing effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the restrictive fiscal and monetary policy of the ECB, etc.).

The most relevant deals closed in 2022 were:

• Spain: Bestinver and Meridiam acquired the remaining 15% of the Autopista del Sol owned by Cintra.
• Spain: The sale of a 75% stake in the AP-7 (Alicante-Cartagena) by the controlling shareholder Pralesa Concesiones was suspended.
• Germany: BBGI Global Infrastructure (BBGI) agreed to purchase 49% of the A7 motorway from Bordesholm to Hamburg.
• Greece: Agreement for the eastern ring road in Thessaloniki. Contract for a motorway based on the availability of 300 million euros
• Ireland: DIF Capital Partners sold its stake in the concession of the M3, M4 and M50 motorways to Semperian Investment.