Balfour Beatty plc, the leading international infrastructure group, has today issued a confident trading update  for the year ended 31 December 2009 in advance of its preliminary results announcement on 4 March 2010.

The company said that overall, trading and the order book remain in line with its November Interim Management Statement which said that it expected 2009 to be a year of good progress and reported a high-quality order book of around £13.7 billion.

Balfour Beatty’s balance sheet and financial position remain strong, with average net cash for the second half of the year being in excess of £300 million.

Parsons Brinckerhoff purchase provides “significantly enhanced” capabilities

The acquisition of Parsons Brinckerhoff in October last year was the realisation of a number of key strategic objectives which has given the Group significantly enhanced capabilities and presence across the entire life cycle of major infrastructure assets. The Group’s business, is now being reported in four segments: construction services, professional services, support services and infrastructure investments.

Construction Services has had a particularly strong year with good performances from the building businesses, especially in the US. The company said its businesses have reacted quickly to reduce costs where volumes have reduced.

Balfour Beatty said its Professional Services division has been transformed by the acquisition of PB and integration work has continued to proceed well.  However, while the existing professional services business performed well in the year, the overall result will be impacted by the seasonal nature of PB’s profit profile, an issue already flagged up in the Interim Management Statement. There will be a full-year contribution from PB in 2010.

Support Services, which comprises utilities, facilities management, rail renewals and highways maintenance activities, has performed well in the year, and with recent wins finishes the year with a strong future order book.  Balfour Beatty recently announced a seven-year contract to provide integrated facilities management services to QinetiQ and its utilities business has secured new AMP 5 capital programme contracts with United Utilities and Anglian Water worth in the region of £600 million in total.

The pipeline of bidding activity in Infrastructure Investments in the UK remains strong, with Balfour Beatty reaching financial close on the £450 million Blackburn with Darwen and Bolton Councils Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme earlier this week.

The company said that it had benefited in 2009 from continued expenditure in infrastructure markets and was finishing the the year with a strong order book.