ENGINEERING company Balfour Beatty reported a 10% increase in pre-tax profits to £130m for the year to December 31 2003, including provision for anticipated costs arising from the ’surprising and disappointing’ termination of its three Network Rail maintenance contracts.
The order book grew 14% to £5·8bn.Balfour Beatty’s share in two of the London Underground public-private partnerships made the largest contribution, with £1·2bn of orders over seven years from Metronet.
In the Rail Engineering & Services sector profits were up 11% at £41m, with good performance in Italy from the rail power systems business based in Germany.
Looking forwards, the company believes there is ’scope for broadening our rail footprint in a number of territories.’
