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Grupo ACS

Florentino Pérez has built Actividades de Construcción y Servicios (ACS) into Spain's largest builder, with 107,000 employees and revenues last year of almost €11 billion. "We've come further than anyone could have imagined," Pérez told shareholders on May 19.

So has Pérez, who still owns more than 7% of ACS. A former center-right politician, Pérez entered the construction business in 1983 when he and a group of fellow engineers acquired Construcciónes Padrós, a money-losing Catalan builder. Pérez returned Padrós to financial health, then merged it with three other Spanish builders to create ACS in 1997. The biggest merger of all came in 2003, when Pérez took over Spanish construction giant Dragados. Today, ACS is not just No.1 among Spanish builders but an international power with contracts in 38 countries around the world.

One aspect of ACS's business that keeps the bottom line vibrant is its reliance on industrial services for more than 50% of its revenue. That includes such work as building and maintaining offshore platforms and installing telecom networks. In May, ACS beat out French rivals to win a €1 billion contract to build and operate a waste treatment plant in Marseilles--which Pérez says proves ACS is now "international in every way." And to the successful go intangible rewards: In 2000, Pérez was elected president of the Real Madrid football club, one of Spain's most coveted sports jobs.