Balfour Beatty's forward orderbook 20% higher at £9bn

Balfour Beatty’s forward orderbook has climbed to £9bn. The figure is 20% higher than it was 12 months ago.

Balfour has four main operating divisions: building, engineering, rail and investments.

In a trading update today, Balfour says that the facilities management part of its building division secured over £650m of new work during the year, including long-term contracts for the Department for Work and Pensions as well as the Metropolitan Police.

Performance in engineering “continued to improve” said Balfour. Among the work secured was a £115m contract for the northern ticket hall at Kings Cross Station.

Birse, the UK regional civil engineering contractor, was acquired seven months ago and “integration has proceeded well” according to Balfour.

In rail, there was a strong recovery in the second half following a relatively weak first six months. Turnover from work on the UK over-ground rail network was flat, but good progress was made on rail projects for BAA at Heathrow Terminal 5 and for Metronet on the London Underground.

Under investments, Balfour reports that progress on the Metronet concession continues to be mixed and “substantial changes to the procurement and delivery systems are in the process of finalisation”.