Balfour Beatty profits reach £67m after Barking Power settlement

Balfour Beatty’s pre-tax profit of £52m in the first half of 2005 was boosted to a figure of £67m thanks to a £15m exceptional item stemming from the settlement of a dispute over payments due to Barking Power where Balfour holds a major stake.

Turnover of £2.3bn was well ahead of the £2bn figure in the comparable period last year.

Balfour’s orderbook has grown by 9% since the year end to a record £7.4bn.

Ian Tyler, chief executive, said that most of the businesses had turned in satisfactory performances. “In the US, management changes, reorganisation and other steps taken to address the poor performance of the last two years have begun to show results, with a significantly improved performance in the civil engineering business,” he said.

Turnover of £630m in the civil engineering division produced an operating profit of £12m, more than double the figure of £5m in the first half of 2004.

However Balfour’s building and management division’s performance went in the opposite direction. Turnover of £780m generated an operating profit of £6m, representing a margin of just 0.8%. In the first half of 2004 it logged an operating profit of £12m.