Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles SA
Another cheap(ish) European industrial, benefitting from the new green urban mobility
Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles ($CAF.MC) is a €1.4 billion Spanish company that manufactures railway and bus vehicles and equipment (including rail services such as maintenance, refurbishment, upgrading, project management, and after-sales support). In addition, it also offers comprehensive transport solutions by developing turnkey solutions that cover a range of activities, such as viability analysis and studies; system design and engineering; construction and manufacture of the system.
Founded in 1892 and headquartered in Beasain, its majority shareholders are its employees with a ~24% stake via Cartera Social,1 followed by Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa Fundación Bancaria (a banking foundation in the Basque Country) with 13%.2 Approximately 5% each is owned by Indumenta Pueri (the Domínguez de Gor family’s holding company who also owns the Mayoral children’s fashion brand in the Iberian peninsula) and by Danimar 1900 (the holding company of Daniel Bravo Andreu, a Spanish pharmacists, entrepreneur and philanthropist who passed away in 2024 at age 94; Danimar also has stakes in Acerinox and Almirall). Another 3% is owned by Instituto Vasco de Finanzas (a public entity controlled by the Basque government) with the remaining ~49% being free float.
Products & services
In the past two decades, urban mobility has completely changed across many European cities: new bike lanes have been built, electric scooters are popping up everywhere, but most important public transport is being updated quickly, with cars either outright banned from the city centres or forced to pay a congestion charge to move freely. The trend is clearly moving towards restricting private means of transport and developing greener mass transport.
