Strong performance in roads and building sectors help offset reduced UK rail work

Balfour Beatty has reported trading in line with expectations after strong performances in its market sectors.

The contractor said that it was benefitting from continued infrastructure spending and the contribution from recent acquisitions.

The order book at 30 June was expected to be around £12.8bn and the firm said it had average net cash of £200m for the first six months of the year.

Despite more competitive construction markets Balfour Beatty said that performance in the sector was up on last year, with the UK market steady and the US strong.

Balfour said it had been impacted by reduced volumes of rail work in the UK, but had benefitted from the high volume of road projects.

Road projects include the M74, A3, A421 and A4 and in May it started work on widening the M25.

Balfour Beatty said it anticipated making continued progress through 2009.

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