Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, announces its 2012 Q3 Interim Management Statement, covering the period 30 June to 7 November 2012.
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.
