Following a year of strong growth in 2025, marked by its integration into Arrow Global Group, Engexpor is entering a new expansion cycle in 2026. With a focus on accelerating its growth rate, diversifying its service offering, acquiring companies, expanding across Europe, and significantly strengthening its team, these priorities are outlined by CEO Miguel Alegria in an interview with Vida Imobiliária.
“2025 was a year of significant growth for Engexpor, in line with what has been our trajectory over the past decade,” begins Miguel Alegria, also highlighting that the year coincided with the company’s integration into Arrow Global Group, finalized on September 1st, 2025. A strategic move that, he says, stems from “a clear desire to grow, diversify services, and expand into new markets, particularly in Europe.”
Although Engexpor currently operates actively in Portugal and Brazil, it has previously also had a presence in Angola and Mozambique. “These are geographies with great potential, but also with instability and increased risk. And given the strong growth we have been experiencing in Portugal, we understood that the next step would have to be expansion into Europe,” explains the CEO.
However, he acknowledges that “despite having a considerable scale in our country today, we knew it would not be easy to make that leap into the European market alone, without scale, context, and a strong international network.” This is where the opportunity with Arrow Global Group emerged — “a client of ours for five years, which recognized our technical capability and growth potential,” he says, emphasizing that “this integration allows us to maintain management autonomy while gaining access to new geographies, projects, and opportunities.”
In this new cycle, the strategy is therefore to continue growing alongside Engexpor’s diversified client base across the four sectors in which it operates — infrastructure, industry, energy, and real estate — while simultaneously expanding its service portfolio and exporting those services to other geographies where the Arrow Group has an active presence.
Service diversification opens doors to new business
Although project management and construction management remain the company’s core business, in recent years Engexpor has been strengthening its service offering in complementary but strategic areas. These include Technical Advisory Services, focused on supporting investors in transaction processes; Sustainability and Environmental Advisory Services, supporting owners in LEED, BREEAM, WELL, or Acqua certification processes; and Digital Services, with strong specialization in BIM. “And, building on what has already been done, we would like to continue expanding into other areas and capabilities, namely in design development, property management and maintenance, and other services associated with real estate,” Miguel Alegria adds.
He notes that “although our core business accounts for over 85% of turnover, these other areas have a decisive impact on our ability to enter highly complex projects and reach new clients and investors at an early stage, when they need our support the most. In other words, the value they create is not measured only in direct revenue, but also in the validation, technical rigor, and integrated vision we bring to projects,” he states.
Goal is to grow 40% in Portugal in 2026
“Over the last five years, we have grown at an average rate above 20% per year in Portugal, and for 2026 our goal is to grow 40%, which is a significant challenge. And in order to achieve it, we will need to significantly strengthen our workforce, so we plan to expand our team from the current 200 to close to 250 people throughout this year,” reveals Miguel Alegria, recalling that just a decade ago “we had 14 employees in our country.”
From industry to infrastructure, from energy to real estate, Engexpor’s accelerated post-pandemic growth has been widespread across all sectors in which it operates, with several large-scale and complex projects in Portugal now included in its portfolio. Working exclusively for the private sector, in infrastructure the company is currently involved in the expansion of the South Pier at Lisbon Airport, for Vinci/ANA, considered one of the largest civil construction projects currently underway in the country.
In industry, the company is involved in the pilot building of the Hyper Data Center in Sines, in the Hovione Tejo industrial project, and maintains growing activity at Autoeuropa/Volkswagen. In real estate, its portfolio is broad and spans several subsegments, with particular emphasis on hospitality. “We are involved in numerous hotel projects for the Arrow Group, from JW Marriott Palmares, the brand’s first in Portugal, to several projects with the Mercan Group across the country, as well as the recently completed Meliá Lisbon,” he explains.
In offices, highlights include Oriente Green Campus and the major redevelopment of the former Feira Popular site, for Fidelidade. In residential, Engexpor supports large-scale projects for developers such as Avenue, in Lisbon and Porto.
As for 2026, “we are starting the year with a significant project pipeline already in place, and we have very strong expectations,” says the CEO of Engexpor, anticipating that in the coming months activity in Portugal will see more expressive growth in the industry and real estate sectors — particularly in hospitality and residential.
“In 2026 we want to continue growing across the four sectors in which we operate: industry, infrastructure, energy, and above all, real estate. Our goal is to reach 250 employees in Portugal.”
“We want to help shorten timelines and make the real estate process more efficient”
In his view, the biggest challenge in the Portuguese real estate market continues to be project development timelines. “We strongly believe in the real estate sector and in its increasing professionalization. We understand the importance of solid technical, planning, and cost analysis, but also that digitalization and BIM are becoming increasingly essential to reduce risks, delays, and inefficiencies.”
Therefore, in this new cycle, “we want to help shorten timelines across all phases — design, licensing, and construction — improving the overall efficiency of the real estate process,” Miguel Alegria promises.
With this in mind, and although without revealing the “business secret,” he told Vida Imobiliária that “our objective is to continue growing, both organically and through acquisitions that complement our offering, in order to provide an increasingly complete and integrated service to developers and investors.”
“We are starting the year with a significant project pipeline already in place and we have very positive expectations for the coming years.”
See the article published in Vida Imobiliária.