(BFM Stock Exchange) – Vinci, Bouygues, Saint -Gobain but also the German Heidelberg have signed enviable stock market performance since the start of the year. The German investment plan in infrastructure has played, as well as good results or the price of oil coke.

The saying wants “when the building goes everything goes”. The construction sector is certainly not yet taken from the rut in France.

But, on the stock market, construction groups have signed enviable increases since the start of the year. Vicat (+50.6%over the whole of 2025) Eiffage (+33.6%), Bouygues (+29.8%), Vinci (+22%) and Saint-Gobain (+10.6%) outperform the CAC 40 (+2.83%).

Spie (+49%) can be associated with this group of values, because Vinci, Eiffage and Bouygues (with its subsidiary Equans) have certain activities very similar to those of the civil engineering specialist. This trend is not limited to France since the German Heidelberg Materials jumped 49% over the same period.

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Germany’s boost

How to explain the enthusiasm of investors for these however cyclical titles? A common denominator appears: German announcements. Berlin has set up in the spring a fund of 500 billion euros dedicated to infrastructure, which is more widely written in its recovery plan intended to energize growth.

“The sector clearly benefited from German expenses in infrastructure announced just after the general elections,” noted the independent AlphaValue design office in a note published in May.

“The recovery plan in the infrastructure stimulates all sectors of French materials and values ​​benefit from this effect since the German recovery plan will also benefit neighboring players,” said News Bulletin 247, Philippe Ferreira, deputy head of strategy at KéPler Cheuvreux, in early June.

To give some orders of idea, Bank of America estimates that Germany represents 10% of Eiffage’s income. On the side of Spie, Germany is, following several acquisitions, on the verge of becoming the group’s first market, in front of France, with a third of income. This proportion aims to grow in the coming years, according to the group, for whom this country will be “a powerful growth engine”.

“Flight to quality”

Another phenomenon has played: the “Flight to Quality”. That is to say the rush to the refuge values. With the uncertainty caused by American customs duties, investors have looked for companies with local activities and/or working on long -term contracts, with visibility, to shelter the storm. This corresponds to the profile of construction companies.

A group like Eiffage displays a order book in its “work” division of almost 30 billion euros at the end of March, which represents very far from the double of the revenues of this same division (19.5 billion in 2024). Stifel thinks, by the way, that its activities of “contracting” (construction, infrastructure) should experience an acceleration in the second half of 2025.

In the specific cases of Vinci and Eiffage, an analyst specializing in the construction sector notes that the political risk linked to a potential end or renationalization of motorway concession companies has calmed down. The measure appeared in the national rally program in 2022.

This risk was reappeared in 2024 with the dissolution of the National Assembly and the political instability which followed. These fears then appeared after the Bayrou government survived several motions of censorship.

Vinci Autoroutes represents 37% of the operating profit on Vinci activity while the current operating profit of concessions (which include airports but are archi-dominated by highways) of Eiffage represents 67% of the total.

For its part, Bouygues, via its subsidiary Bouygues Telecom, was able to be carried by an lull of competition on the telecoms market in France, while investors feared an intense price war, at the end of 2024. The hopes around a consolidation of this same market, which also worn Orange on the stock market, were also able to play.

Bouygues also saw its latest results being carried by the recovery of the margins of Equans, its subsidiary of multi-technical services (ventilation, heating, fire protection) bought in Engie in 2022 for more than 6 billion euros.

Cross reading and “oil coke”

The anonymous analyst mentioned above considers that Bouygues, Vinci and Eiffage also benefited from the ricochet of the good health of Spie, whose professions correspond, therefore, to certain activities of these three groups. The market was thus able to make a cross -reading.

Spie, strictly speaking, was propelled by “a conjunction of factors”, underlines this analyst. “The company had disappointed on its activity in the third quarter of 2024, which had penalized its stock market. The annual results then demonstrated that it was only a course accident, then the company succeeded in its day dedicated to investors,” he lists.

At the end of this last event, organized in March, Stifel judged that Spie had “reassured the market” with medium term targets slightly higher than the consensus.

Saint-Gobain, for his part, was supported by good results (a habit at the dean company of CAC 40) with in particular more large volumes than expected in the first quarter.

Like other companies in its sector, the company has also been brought “by a favorable environment on the cost of raw materials, in particular on oil coke, a fuel used in cement ovens”, underlines a financial intermediary.

This expert also explains that investors have started to anticipate a recovery in construction in Europe on the basis of some encouraging signals. This even if this recovery “will not have a fallout before the end of 2025 or even 2026”, he specifies.

Vicat was also able to benefit from the same elements. AlphaValue also evokes, an “resilient” activity of the cement maker in the first quarter.

It will be advisable to monitor, if, in the second half, this rally can continue while, on the side of building materials, certain groups begin to display demanding valuation multiple. The political risk in Vinci and Eiffage also remains a sword of Damocles which could be more threatening if the French executive were to be weakened.