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

Final Results

Highlights


· Continued to grow in target geographies and sectors while facing challenges in UK and US construction markets

· Order book up 1% at £15.3bn with 63% now economic infrastructure

· Revenue1 down 1%; down 4% before the impact of foreign exchange and acquisitions

· Continuing profit growth in Professional Services and Investments

· Cost efficiency programme on track to achieve £80 million by 2015; £36 million of savings achieved at a non-underlying cost of £61 million in 2012

· Directors' valuation of the PPP portfolio at £734 million (2011: £743 million) after the disposal of two assets generating disposal gains of £52 million

· Strategic decision taken to divest of Mainland European rail operations; non-underlying cost of £104 million incurred including £95m goodwill write down

· Underlying earnings per share down 1%; full-year dividend increased by 2% to 14.1p


Contract Win

Balfour Beatty awarded £130 million rail contract

A contract in excess of £130 million to build two miles of the Crossrail route and an iconic new rail station in South East London that will deal with thousands of commuters every day has been awarded to leading international infrastructure group Balfour Beatty.

The Group confirmed today that following their involvement in the successful completion of the design phase of the Crossrail South East Section Project, Network Rail has now awarded them the contract for the final phase which will see them build the new station in Abbey Wood, including the replacement of its two existing platforms. It will also involve installing two new dedicated Crossrail lines from the station to the Plumstead portal, providing access to the new Crossrail tunnels into Canary Wharf and central London, and modifications to several bridges along the route.

The new Crossrail route will connect Maidenhead and Heathrow in the west, through new twin-bore 21 km (13 miles) tunnels below central London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

....
The group made an underlying pre-tax profit of 310 million pounds in 2012, ahead of analysts' forecasts which ranged between 204 million and 323 million pounds and averaged 295 million pounds.

The construction division finished the year with an order book of 8 billion pounds, down 6 percent on a year ago, including a 17 percent fall in the United States, while revenue in the division was down 1 percent at 6.96 billion pounds.

Total revenue was also down 1 percent at 10.9 billion pounds.

Construction groups have become volatile through the industry downturn that hit in 2008, having embarked on ambitious cost cutting drives and diversifyng into adding new services as well as new markets like Brazil, India and Australia.

Balfour Beatty's Professional -- project management, design and planning -- and Support Services divisions combined jumped from making up 44 percent of its order book in 2011 to 47 percent in 2012, though some analysts worry its progress has been slow.

The order book for Support Services was up 12 percent at 5.7 billion after a 3 percent rise in revenue to 1.6 billion pounds. Professional Services' revenue was up 1 percent at 1.67 billion pounds and the order book was up 9 percent at 1.6 billion.
...

Dividend 14.1p, above 5%.

Balfour Beatty to exit mainland Europe in growth quest

LONDON | Thu Mar 7, 2013 11:46am GMT

(Reuters) - British construction firm Balfour Beatty (BALF.L) plans to sell most of its businesses in mainland Europe to seek growth in Australia and elsewhere, its incoming chief executive said.

Andrew McNaughton, who will take the helm in April, said on Thursday he wanted to "put some pace" into predecessor Ian Tyler's strategy of looking beyond UK construction for growth after Balfour Beatty reported a 7 percent fall in 2012 profit.

Balfour Beatty has already sold its Spanish business to management and McNaughton said he planned to divest all others in mainland Europe by the year-end, except the more decentralised German business, which he said would take longer.

6% dividend stock and is falling!!

Been wondering whether or not to stick with this one, 10% down at the moment and would like to see an intra day reversal or small bounce today if I am going to continue to hold. H

sutherlh1-----I would sell, main reason being I have bought back in today sub 236p and I have this uncanny knack of inflicting sp weakness on most of what I buy. I bought and sold these previously and made a decent rather than spectacular profit so I'm hoping for a repeat performance. Good luck whatever you decide.
2517

Got out at 246p. Must admit sub 236p looks a good entry point from the chart being a level it has bounced from over the last 5 years (apart from late 2011 when it got to sub 220p). It still has a reasonable yield and could bounce from here. Good luck 2517. H

Agree with Sutherlh1 could bounce from here

seems to have bounced - where the sp heading now ?

I can see it up to the 200dma around 270p, before falling off again IMHO. H

Lets see how it opens broker upgrade today

RESEARCH ALERT-Balfour Beatty: Berenberg raises to buy

11 Apr 2013 - 07:00
April 11 (Reuters) - Balfour Beatty PLC : * Berenberg raises to buy from hold

Ex-div next wed 24th Apr (8.5p)

Deutsche Bank Hold 245.05 242.30 260.00 260.00 Reiterates

Trading Update

Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, announces today that its UK construction business is expected to deliver significantly lower profits from operations for 2013 than management's expectations at the time of the full-year results announcement in March. The remainder of the business remains on track in aggregate.

Citigroup Neutral 216.00 260.00 220.00 Reiterates

Berenberg Buy 216.00 290.00 270.00 Reiterates

Deutsche Bank Hold 216.00 260.00 220.00 Reiterates

Oriel Securities Buy 216.00 346.00 346.00 Retains

Panmure Gordon Buy 216.00 310.00 310.00 Reiterates

PFI Asset Sales

PFI ASSET SALES DEMONSTRATE VALUE OF INVESTMENT BUSINESS

Balfour Beatty operates in international infrastructure markets and creates value from a combination of its strong local businesses, end-to-end capabilities and asset knowledge in infrastructure, and its skills as an investor and developer of infrastructure assets.

Since the mid-1990's the Group has built a substantial investments business through financing and developing greenfield infrastructure assets. This business has become a core value generator and has made significant progress recently in diversifying its activities into new sectors and new geographies, thus reducing the business's reliance on PFI in the UK and military housing in the US.

Taking into account the maturity and the scale of the portfolio (Directors' valuation £734 million at December 2012) as well as the significant opportunities presented by the diversification mentioned above, the business has been managing the portfolio more actively since 2010 - generating additional cash from disposals and reinvesting in areas that align with the Group's target geographies and market sectors.

As part of this strategy, Balfour Beatty announces today the completion of two PFI disposal transactions:

· The Group has sold its 50% interests in four PFI schools projects in Birmingham, Bassetlaw, Stoke and Rotherham to its co-shareholder, Innisfree, for combined proceeds of £42.5 million, generating a gain on disposal of £24.4 million.

· Balfour Beatty has also completed the sale of its 50% interest in the Tameside Hospital PFI to a subsidiary of HICL Infrastructure Company Limited, its co-shareholder, for a consideration of £16.0 million, generating a gain on disposal of £9.0 million.

The aggregate proceeds of £58.5 million exceed the Directors' valuation by £21.9 million.

Commenting today, Balfour Beatty Chief Executive, Andrew McNaughton, said:

"Balfour Beatty's ability to deliver long-term projects has enabled us to deliver superior returns from our equity investments while delivering a first class service to the public sector.

"The transactions we have completed demonstrate the quality and liquidity of our portfolio and are in line with our strategy to generate income from our Infrastructure Investments business through disposals, thereby releasing cash for future investments and delivering value for our shareholders."

ENDS

Credit Suisse Underperform 213.20 215.90 279.00 200.00 Downgrades

Panmure Gordon Buy 213.20 215.90 310.00 310.00 Reiterates

which one of these institutions are more reliable and honest?