Juan Miguel Villar Mir, chairman of Obrascon Huarte Lain SA (OHL)m, has announced that he will step down leaving his son in charge of the company.

Although these plans were not new, Juan Miguel Villar Mir said he would formally announce them at the company’s next annual shareholders’ meeting in Madrid. His son, now vicechairman will officially replace him at the board meeting, scheduled for next week.

In 1987, Villar Mir and partners including Jose Luis Garcia Villalba acquired Obrascon, a construction firm based in Bilbao in 1911, and then combined it with Huarte and Lain in the late 1990s.

OHL now operates in 30 countries, generated €4.37 billion ($4.95 billion) of revenue last year, and has a market valuation of €1.3 billion.

Villar Mir was a former budget minister and head of economic affairs in the first Spanish government formed under the restored monarchy in 1975. His family-controlled industrial group, Grupo Villar Mir, employs more than 30,000 people in 37 countries.