The 16 billion euro ($20.5 billion) takeover of the British airport company BAA by Grupo Ferrovial, announced Tuesday, is the latest in a string of large purchases by Spanish companies looking beyond their border.   Next, analysts and deal makers say, could be more acquisitions in banking, as well as in construction and airport companies. 

Considered Europe's sleepy corporate citizens until recently, Spanish companies completed deals worth $64.9 billion outside their own borders in 2005, up 69 percent from the year before. Already this year, they have made $61.4 billion worth of deals outside the country, according to data from Thomson Financial. Because of the deals, Spanish companies are becoming global leaders in some industries, even as protectionist barriers are going up across Europe. 

Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte struck a deal to lease a United States toll road in Indiana. The move helped unleash plans for billions of dollars in privatizations of highways, marinas and public garages around the United States. Many of those deals are expected to go to Spain's infrastructure companies, including Cintra.

''Traditionally Spanish companies have invested in Latin America, because it was the natural market for language and cultural reasons,'' said Javier Garcia de Enterria, a partner with the Madrid office of the law firm of Clifford Chance. In part because of increasing instability there, they are turning instead to the European market, and in some cases even looking to the United States, he said. 

Spanish expansion in the United States has traditionally been limited to Hispanic markets, but that is rapidly changing. In addition to Spanish companies bidding on toll road projects and highway building in the United States, the bank BBVA is on the hunt for what many expect to be a large transaction.