Would anyone know why there has been such a large number of shares sold and no buying? Is there something we are not aware of?

The market once again seem unmoved by a contract announcement.
£300mill is a lot of money but there does appear to be a lot of work to be done and three companies to share the rewards.
I wish they could give us some indication as to what will be left on the bottom line, maybe then the market would be more enthusiastic.

Interim Management Statement

Update

Following its good performance in 2012, the Group has had a strong start to the current year and is performing in line with the Board's expectations.

Costain is continuing to secure new work from major blue-chip customers who are investing billions of pounds in capital, operations and maintenance contracts and who require increasingly innovative solutions to their complex requirements.

Costain's success in identifying, developing and implementing innovative solutions to meet those customer requirements is demonstrated in the following examples of new work won since the start of the year:

- In anticipation of Network Rail's £9.4 billion investment in electrifying Britain's railways, Costain established a joint venture to develop a range of innovative solutions that would directly meet the customer's requirements. As a result, the Group announced that it had won the West Coast Power Supply Upgrade contract, its first contract as part of a circa £300 million investment by Network Rail in power upgrade.

- As a consequence of an intense focus on understanding the customer's specific needs, the Group secured, in joint venture, a further four contracts from Crossrail. The latest awards include the very important circa. £300m contract to design, fit-out and commission the railway systems across Crossrail's tunnel network.

- By implementing new service attributes, innovation and performance enhancement into an existing contract, the Group was recently awarded by the Highways Agency a two-year extension to its Managing Agent Contractor Area 7 maintenance contract.

- Following the successful completion earlier this year of the engineering design, procurement and construction management at Centrica's Easington Gas Terminal, enabling the production of gas from the York field in the Southern North Sea, we have received a repeat order from Centrica for the front end engineering design (FEED) at the Barrow terminals which service the East Irish Sea gas fields.


Order book

As a result of new contract awards and extensions the Group's quality forward order book has increased to £2.5 billion (31 December 2012: £2.4 billion), of which over 90% is repeat orders.

In addition, the Group has also increased its preferred bidder position to over £500 million (31 December 2012: over £400m).

To date, over £800 million of revenue has been secured for 2013.

The overall level of tendering activity across the Group's targeted markets remains high.

Financial position

The Group continues to benefit from a robust financial position with a strong net cash position.

In its full-year results announcement the Group highlighted that net cash would trend lower as the Group benefits from its increased emphasis on support service related activities and on customers who increasingly utilise a target cost based form of contract, together with changing industry cash flow profiles.

Proposed all-share merger with May Gurney Integrated Services plc ('May Gurney')

The Boards of Costain and May Gurney announced on 26 March 2013 that they had reached agreement on the terms of a recommended all-share merger of Costain and May Gurney (the 'Proposed Merger').

On 24 April 2013, the Boards of Kier Group plc ('Kier') and May Gurney announced that they had reached agreement on the terms of a recommended offer for May Gurney by Kier (the 'Kier Offer'). At the time of such announcement, the value of the Kier Offer represented a premium of approximately 35 per cent. to the then value of the Proposed Merger.

On 25 April 2013, Costain announced that, having undertaken several months of detailed due diligence, it did not believe that it would be in the best interests of Costain shareholders for Costain to amend the terms of the Proposed Merger, that it would not be making a revised offer for May Gurney and that it intended to lapse the Proposed Merger at the earliest opportunity.

Accordingly, the Proposed Merger is expected to lapse, in accordance with its terms, on 29 May 2013.

The Group incurred transaction costs of approximately £4m (pre-tax) associated with the May Gurney proposal and these will be expensed in the first half results and treated as a one-off non trading item.

Outlook

Costain's continuing progress, despite challenging economic conditions, is a reflection of the Group's strategic focus on meeting the complex needs of customers by providing an integrated consulting, project delivery and operations and maintenance capability.

The Group believes that, driven by innovation, the strategic development of the business will be accelerated as we work with customers on their future programmes.

With strong financial resources and an increased order book, the Board remains confident of meeting its expectations in 2013.

Costain appointed to new TfL ECI framework

Costain, one of the UK's leading Tier One engineering solutions providers, is pleased to announce that it has been awarded one of four places on Transport for London's ('TfL') framework for Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) and Construction, initially worth approximately £200m overall. The Group is working on its first project within this framework: the Hammersmith Flyover strengthening project, worth approximately £60m.

The full project scope will be defined during the ECI phase, but is likely to involve strengthening the flyover using post-tensioning, replacing bearings, waterproofing and resurfacing the deck, and replacing the drainage.

Hammersmith Flyover, which is used by 90,000 road users a day, is situated on one of London's main strategic routes, and the strengthening work is essential to keep London moving.

The framework and the ECI work for Hammersmith start immediately; the framework will run for four years.

"and is on-course to deliver a result for the year which is in-line with the Board’s expectations."

Paragraph taken from today's trading statement....if only just for once they could just be a little more enthusiastic I'm sure the s p would get a good boost.

Acquisition of EPC Offshore Limited (EPC Offshore) and launch of Costain Upstream

1 August 2013

Costain, one of the UK's leading Tier One engineering solutions providers, is pleased to announce that it has today acquired EPC Offshore, a specialist oil & gas project management services company, for an initial consideration of £9.6 million (plus £1.0 million for excess cash). Costain also announces the launch of Costain Upstream, which will provide services across the life-cycle of upstream offshore oil and gas assets.

EPC Offshore Acquisition

Established in 2009, and with a workforce today of 75 professional staff led by founder and CEO Keith Wallace, EPC Offshore is a field development and project management specialist providing client-side services to North Sea oil and gas companies. The company is differentiated by its programme management expertise and the highly effective application of proprietary in-house systems and processes.

EPC Offshore delivered revenue of £11.7 million, adjusted EBITDA of £2.0 million (adjustments reflect the removal of certain shareholder related costs that will not be incurred by the business in future) and profit after tax of £1.1 million for the year ended 31 July 2012. EPC Offshore had gross assets of £3.3 million as at 31 July 2012. The acquisition is expected to be earnings enhancing to Costain in the first full year of acquisition.

The initial consideration for 100% of the share capital of EPC Offshore is £9.6 million (plus £1.0 million for excess cash included within the company) and was paid in cash on completion. Further consideration may also be payable depending on the financial performance of the business in the financial years ending 31 December 2014, 2015 and 2016 and the retention of certain key employees in 2016. This performance consideration is subject to a minimum of £2.0 million and a maximum of £14.4 million. The consideration funding will be provided from Costain’s existing debt facilities.

Launch of Costain Upstream

Costain Upstream will combine the capabilities of ClerkMaxwell, the oil and gas engineering and support services provider, which has more than doubled in size since its acquisition in 2011, and EPC Offshore to increase the scale of the Group’s services in the growing, high-value North Sea upstream oil and gas market. With a proven capability to deliver a wide range of services including engineering and consultancy, capital project management and asset support, the company will be strongly positioned in the UK offshore field development market where investment in 2013 is forecast at £13 billion (source: Oil & Gas UK - Activity Survey 2013).

The newly formed Costain Upstream will deliver engineering, capital projects and asset support services across four principal service lines; Field Development, Subsea Facilities, Topside Facilities, and Floating Systems, and comprises a resource pool of over 350 people.

Costain Upstream will be led by Keith Wallace, Chief Executive of EPC Offshore, supported by the leadership teams of both ClerkMaxwell and EPC Offshore. They will be based in Aberdeen with operating and support units in Maidenhead, Teeside, Manchester and Abu Dhabi. The acquisition of EPC Offshore will significantly accelerate the growth and market position of Costain Upstream.

Andrew Wyllie, CEO of Costain, commented:

“We are delighted to welcome EPC Offshore to the Costain Group, in an acquisition which will accelerate our stated strategy of broadening our range of capabilities in response to the requirements of major blue chip customers.

“The formation of Costain Upstream will significantly enhance our position in this sector, and the acquisition of EPC Offshore will boost its growth, complementing the front-end engineering and operations capabilities we acquired with ClerkMaxwell two years ago.

“There is a sizeable addressable market for these highly complex services and we see further compelling opportunities to grow our oil and gas footprint both in the UK and internationally.”

Interims out today http://www.moneyam.com/action/news/showArticle?id=4654960

Stan, that's a bit out of date...Costain are paying the interim divi tomorrow.

Looking quite bullish (in a toppy market?).

Costain, one of the UK's leading tier one engineering solutions providers, announces that it has appointed Liberum Capital Limited as its Joint Corporate Broker, alongside Investec Bank plc, with immediate effect.

Trading Update

400p target ?..perhaps...

This is quickly becoming an impressive company to invest in.....the chart looks good...I reckon my previous post is on the cards...

This is pointing to a chart breakout....

Looks good doesn't it ?...

not for 400 it doesn't!

500 perhaps ?.....

Oh..well...it hasn't taken off this morning...back to ramping school RF....

This is not going according to plan.....damn....good divi news with a fund raising at a low price = sp dive........grrrrrr....

Borrow money from the shareholders...so that they can pay the shareholders a bigger divi...with the shareholders own money. I wouldn't fall for that one! Luckily I sold out at around 300p. not going back in even after this drop.