Balfour Beatty’s profits soar

Balfour Beatty’s preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2008 show turnover up 27% to £9.486bn with pre-tax profits rising 24% to £249m.

“Balfour Beatty produced another excellent financial performance in 2008, together with further progress in the Group’s strategic development,” said chief executive Ian Tyler.

“We are strong both operationally and financially and the majority of our work is with public sector and regulated customers, who are long-term investors in infrastructure.

“While the difficult economic environment will have some impact on our businesses and creates greater uncertainty, we anticipate making progress in 2009.”

Balfour Beatty’s order book was £12.8bn at the end of 2008, benefiting from acquisitions and exchange, with £4.9 billion of further work at preferred bidder stage.

“There was very satisfactory organic growth in Balfour Beatty’s established businesses,” said Tyler.

“Performance was held back by a write-down on a large UK building services project pending resolution of income recovery negotiations, and the write-off of a receivable from a property developer.

“Our facilities management business, now renamed Balfour Beatty WorkPlace [formerly Haden Building Management], grew strongly.”