Anybody trading in these shares? I just bought some @ 204.72

Wednesday

• Construction and services group Balfour Beatty (Other OTC: BAFBF.PK - news) is expected to post sales of £11.5bn for the first half of the year, against £11.04bn a year ago. Adjusted pre-tax profit will come in at £330m, down from £334m, according to Liberum Capital's Joe Brent. He warns there are "macro-economic pressures in a variety of businesses, and margins and cash flow are under pressure". But he thinks that a stable order book expected to be flat at £15.2bn and improving cash flow in the second half will offer investors comfort.

Half Yearly report

Half-year highlights

· First-half performance demonstrates the diversity, flexibility and resilience of our business

· Good progress on the implementation of the strategy in industry verticals and growth markets

· With £5bn of new orders in the first half, order book stable at £15.0bn (FY2011: £15.2bn)

· Revenue up 6% (+1% excluding the impact of acquisitions and currency)

· Margins up in Professional Services while pressure remains in Construction Services; cost increases in Support Services not expected to be repeated in the second half

· Cost efficiency programmes on track

· £52m gain from infrastructure investment disposals (HY2011: £14m)

· Underlying EPS up 28%

· Interim dividend increased by 6% to 5.6p

· Net cash at £34m impacted by working capital outflow

Solid looking co paying a decent divi, if I were looking to add I would wait for around 275p.
2517

Thanks Skinny.
Over 5% dividend is quite good. Given likely investment in rail or airport, BBY has much brighter future.

Surprised to see the fall today.

A few broker updates :-

Deutsche Bank Downgrades Hold Tp reduced to 320p from 323p

HB Markets Downgrades Hold no Tp given

Oriel Securities retains it's Buy Tp 365p

And yesterday :-

Investec Securities reiterates it's Sell Tp 210p

BALFOUR BEATTY APPOINTED PREFERRED BIDDER FOR
£110 MILLION STUDENT ACCOMMODATION PROJECT

Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, has been appointed preferred bidder for the University of Edinburgh's £110 million Holyrood Postgraduate Student Accommodation and Outreach Centre project.

The 50-year concession contract involves the design, build and maintenance of student accommodation facilities for the University of Edinburgh. The project will provide state-of-the-art accommodation facilities for 1,160 postgraduate students, as well as an outreach centre which will become the focal point for the University's community-based teaching activities and continuous professional development courses.
Energy for the facilities will be provided by the University's Combined Heat and Power Energy Centre.

Balfour Beatty will invest 100% of the required equity in the project, which is expected to reach financial close in spring 2013.

Student accommodation is the most profitable and secure investment. Guaranteed profit in any situation.

Contract Win

Balfour Beatty Selected for £288m Magnox Framework Contract

Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, has been selected as one of two companies on a £288 million framework for the delivery of construction, infrastructure and maintenance projects across all 10 sites operated by Magnox on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

The framework is expected to be worth up to £30 million per annum, initially for five years with options to extend up to a further five years.

This work will complement a broad portfolio of multi disciplined activities, including executing major projects, already being undertaken by Balfour Beatty at UK Licensed Nuclear Sites. Similarly, it underpins Balfour Beatty's drive to increase its involvement in power related markets.

Any reason for the fall today?

Balfour Beatty is one of the UK's most successful listed companies. In the last five years, shareholder dividends have increased at an average rate of 11.7% and revenues at an average of 16.2% per annum.

Balfour Beatty specialises in supplying large-scale construction and infrastructure services. North America accounts for around one third of group revenues. Australia & Asia provides 10% of sales.

The company recently cheered investors by winning a large contract from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

Balfour Beatty's growth is expected to continue, delivering increased earnings per share and dividends. Consensus is for eps to rise 23.4% in 2012, followed by a small rise the year after. The dividend is expected to grow at a slightly slower rate, averaging 5% growth for the next two years.

Balfour Beatty's success and track record are an enormous asset in winning further business. It is surprising to see such a successful operator trading on a forward P/E of just 8.2 times earnings.

Too late for me Dream... I sold with moderate profit. Bought Glencore instead.

Profit is the word ahoj , sit around for long and it soon goes. Well done .

Contract Win

Balfour Beatty, the global infrastructure group, is on track to realise its strategic goal to capture a 10% share in its area of the US water and wastewater market by 2020 after winning a £80 (US$130) million contract with the Patapsco Wastewater Treatment Plant in Baltimore County, Maryland. Balfour Beatty has also delivered on the strategic milestone of entering the Southwest water and wastewater market by winning its first job in Texas - the £45 (US$74) million, three year contract at the Galveston Main Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Shares in infrastructure and construction firm Balfour Beatty had dropped back a little recently, but they're powering back up again, briefly hitting a new 52-week high of 317.8p today.

The whole sector has seen a strong recovery over the past year, and Balfour Beatty is still looking pretty cheap based on full-year forecasts. There's a 5% dividend yield expected from the shares which trade on a forward price to earnings ratio of less than 9

Interim Management Statement

Trading

Our Professional Services, Support Services and Infrastructure Investments businesses are demonstrating resilience and strength in a challenging economic environment, performing well and in line with our expectations.
In Construction Services, difficult trading conditions have persisted in the period in our two major markets. US construction markets remain depressed, and the performance of our UK construction business is weaker than anticipated. Structural problems in European Rail markets added to the challenges. We have made good progress in implementing both phases of our cost efficiency programme and that has been helpful in offsetting some of the weakness.

As a result and based on the outturn for the third quarter, profitability in 2012 will be slightly lower than expected at the time of the half-year results although this will be somewhat offset by a slightly lower effective tax rate. Furthermore, the conditions that have led to a recent decline in the order book point to 2013 being a difficult year for Construction Services.

Operating performance

Order book

After a small decrease in the first half in the Construction Services order book, we saw a more significant decline in the third quarter. As a result, even though order intake in our other businesses was stable, the Group order book closed at £14.4 billion at the end of September, down from £15.0 billion at the end of June.

Getting hammered so far, down to around 256p, re-entry point shouldn't be too much lower from here I wouldn't have thought, any ideas for a buying level.
2517

To me, 240 to 260 looks like a buying level as it is an 'event' area where a lot of movement has occurred in the last 3 years or so. Am waiting to see if the daily price gets back to 250p for a daily double bottom. I hope we haven't missed the 250 buying price in that spike down this morning. Also I think it goes ex div next week for 5-6p. H

We've had the divi. Xd was on October 10.

Thanks Kevin, got my months mixed up, thought we were still in October! H