2_MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN
For companies of the ANA Group, 2012 marked the end of another
cycle in the history of a company that began in 1979, when ANA
Aeroportos de Portugal was formed as a public company to manage
the network of the major airports in Portugal. In 1998, it was
converted into a public limited company.
With the conclusion of the Group’s privatisation process, following
a highly competitive and successful process that attracted the
attention of some of the world’s largest players in the sector, ANA,
S.A. is faced with new challenges of increased scope regarding its
responsibilities resulting from the reason for its existence.
Until now it has been up to ANA, S.A. to manage the major airports in Portugal effectively and efficiently, but the
prior condition for the process of privatisation, which required a thorough revision of the regulations of the sector
that served as the basis for the contracting of that concession, will lead to an essential alteration of the company’s
assigned responsibilities.
The fact of the matter is that, from here on out, the responsibility of ANA, S.A. is not just to effectively and
efficiently manage the infrastructures entrusted to it; the economic regulation model imposed on it introduces
a new paradigm of intervention. This new model emphasises the company’s role in propelling the Portuguese
economy, in regional development and in meeting the needs of public interest as an essential condition for its own
financial success.
In fact, the future profitability of the company will be conditioned not only on the requirements of service availability
and quality, at competitive prices, but also on its ability to increase passenger and cargo traffic, decisive factors in
the growth of the Portuguese economy, particularly in the vital sector of tourism.
The change in attitudes and processes associated with the new challenges, in and of itself, is a task of considerable
difficulty. The organisational adjustments in adapting the company to a new mode of operation will demand great
effort from all its senior staff and employees who will have to adopt an attitude of continual improvement and
innovation in dealing with the current and future challenges facing the company.
The confidence implicitly placed in the company and in its employees to accomplish that mission is not merely the
result of an established legal and contractual framework. Because of the privatisation process, the company was
closely and thoroughly scrutinised. The final result could not be any clearer.
The valuation attained in a demanding and competitive privatisation process represented the objective evidence
of the opportunity that the new regulatory regime created. More than that, however, it was the unequivocal
affirmation acknowledging the company’s skills and ability to adjust to the new regulatory framework and to garner
from it the benefits that justified that assessment.
ANNUAL REPORT ‘12
MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN
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