Balfour Beatty orderbook climbs to £12bn and cash pile to £250m

Balfour Beatty’s trading update points to a strong balance sheet – the group is sitting on £250m of cash – and a confirmed order that continues to rise.

The current value of forward orders is more than £12bn.

Balfour’s sector performance list shows:

Building  

Strong overall growth in 2008, driven by the performance of acquisitions and the strength of those businesses with public sector and regulated customers in both the UK and the US

Engineering

Very strong growth. UK civil engineering delivered good results, the utility business made good progress, and Balfour Beatty Management continues to grow.

Outside the UK, Dubai operations performed well, particularly in infrastructure projects, despite a considerable slowdown in the market and a cautious view of project recoveries.

Rail

Steady progress. Another good result from the international high-speed rail electrification and power supply business, now strengthened by the acquisition of Schreck-Mieves in Germany, which is performing as expected.

In the UK, profit from rail is slightly down on last year due to the timing of some settlements.  

Investments

Balfour Beatty Communities, a leader in the military accommodation PPP concession market in the US, performed well and in line with our expectations at the time of acquisition.

“We anticipate reaching financial close on our four preferred bidder PFI projects in the UK in the first half of 2009,” said Balfour, “despite the challenges presented by current financing markets.”