Balfour Beatty revenues and profit up in 1st half

Balfour Beatty reported continued growth in the first half of 2008 with revenue up +28% on the same period in 2007 to UK£ 4,3 billion (€ 5,5 billion). Pre-tax profit also increased +25% to UK£95 million (€ 120 million).

The building operations sector of the group reported revenues of UK£ 39 million (€ 50 million), up +30% on the same period in 2007. This reflected a full six month contribution from Balfour Beatty construction US, which was acquired at the end of March 2007 and strong performances, following second half 2007 acquisitions, from Cowlin and Covion.

In the civil and specialist engineering services sector of the group, first half sales rose by +69% on the same period last year to UK£ 44 million (€ 56 million). “This represents a very strong performance across the board with particularly good progress being made in Dubai, where revenues were up almost +40% on last year,” said chief executive Ian Tyler.

The order book for the civil and specialist engineering sector grew by +7% since the 2007 year end to UK£ 4,7 billion (€ 6 billion). “There are several major projects scheduled to be awarded in the near future, so we expect to make good progress in the second half of the year,” continued Mr. Tyler.

“The group’s strategy to build further on its already strong UK regional contracting base progressed in March through the acquisition for UK£ 45 million (€ 57 million) of Dean and Dyball, a leading UK regional civil engineering and building contractor. This has given the group a substantially stronger position in the southern half of England and Wales.