Firm says order book stands at over £17bn

Profit at Balfour Beatty more than doubled in the first half as the firm put a series of problem London residential schemes behind it.

The jobs, which are believed to include a £200m upmarket residential scheme at Curzon Street in Mayfair for Brockton Capital and a £110m scheme to build a 43-storey block called Providence Tower for Ballymore, blew a £23m hole in the firm’s UK construction accounts for the first half of last year.

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The firm’s UK construction arm turned in an £18m profit for the six months to June

But the country’s biggest contractor said this part of the business had moved back into the black with an £18m profit in the first six months of 2022.

The firm said group pre-tax profit for the period to the end of June rose from £35m to £83m. It added that it also booked a net credit of £18m which included a tax credit of £20m. Revenue was flat at £4.1bn.

It said its US construction business, which has been carrying out improvement work at Los Angeles airport, edged profit up 5% to £21m while its Hong Kong-based Gammon business also saw profit rise 11% to £10m.

The firm said its UK construction business was on track to deliver margins of 2% to 3% by the end of the year.

Balfour’s order book stands at £17.7bn with the firm saying that average net cash for 2022 was expected to be between £740m and £780m.