Balfour Beatty boasts £6.5bn order book

Balfour Beatty’s order book stands at £6.5bn with a further £1bn of further construction work at preferred bidder stage.

A trading update issued by Balfour this morning, covering the group’s performance in 2004, confirmed that net cash has been held at £300m.

The statement said: “Balfour’s principal markets in healthcare, education, road and rail transport and utility systems continued to deliver significant opportunities.”

In the engineering business, the acquisition of 50% of Gammon in Hong Kong and the speed-up in the Dubai market both provide Balfour with the prospect of long-term future growth.

In rail, a “significantly larger” share of the mainline renewals programme was secured in the contracts from Network Rail, while the renewals workload for London Underground is “increasingly sharply”. In America, there were losses in Balfour Beatty Rail Inc and downsizing is under way.

Balfour’s investments wing benefited from the acquisition of 100% ownership of Connect roads, the first full-year profit from Metronet and a “strong recovery” in profit in Barking Power.

Preferred bidder status was achieved for five new PFI schemes – hospitals through membership of Consort Healthcare and schools through Balfour’s membership of the Transform Schools consortium.