Concremat, the Brazilian engineering company acquired by China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) in 2016, has an investment pipeline of BRL 14 billion (USD 2.8 billion) in the South American country.
Mauro Viegas Neto, the current Concremat CEO and member of the founding family, is stepping down and passing the baton to two executives who will act as co-CEOs: Márcio Brasileiro, who has been with the company for over ten years, and Zhimin Hu, a Chinese executive who is part of the board of CCCC South America, Brazil Journal reported.
Viegas, who was CEO eight years ago, will now act as an adviser to the board of directors. The transition — six years after the acquisition — comes at a time when CCCC already has an investment pipeline of BRL 14 billion (USD 2.8 billion) in the country.
In recent years, CCCC has won the bid to build a bridge between Salvador and the island of Itaparica, as well as a project to build a railroad in Pará. The Salvador-Itaparica bridge project was awarded in 2020, but is stopped due to a technical issue.
The bid was awarded before the pandemic and, since then, there has been inflation of materials. Because of this, CCCC is discussing with the Government how to financially rebalance the project, Brazil Journal reported.
The initial forecast was for an investment of R$ 7.7 billion (USD 1.5 billion), of which R$ 1.5 billion (USD 300 million) would be invested by the Government and the rest by CCCC.
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The railroad in Pará will require another R$ 7 billion (USD 1.2 billion) in investments. CCCC signed a memorandum of understanding with the Government of Pará in early April to build and operate the railroad.
The 530-kilometer network should connect the port of Vila do Conde, in Barcarena, in the northeast of Pará, to some municipalities in the southeast of the state. From there, the railroad goes to Açailândia, in Maranhão.
In these two projects, Concremat takes on the consulting engineering work (structuring the projects and managing them), while CCCC executes the works and handles the capex.
CCCC bought 80% of Concremat’s capital in 2016 for BRL 350 million (USD 70 million). The company from Rio de Janeiro was founded 70 years ago by the Viegas family. Mauro is part of the third generation of the founders.
The company serves most of the main national infrastructure players — from Vale to Cosan, from Brookfield to Sabesp — and currently has 215 consulting projects.
Last year, Concremat earned R$ 1.18 billion, a growth of 30% in the annual comparison.
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