Costain says it is on target

UK contractor Costain expects to deliver full-year results which are in line with the expectations of its board of directors, according to a pre-close trading update for the year ended 31 December, 2013, ahead of its preliminary results for the period which will be announced in March.

Costain said that since its group interim management statement on 5 November, 2013, it had continued to perform strongly. In addition, it revealed in December that it had realised a profit of £9.1 million (€11 million) from the sale of its minority shareholdings in three joint venture companies to Severn Trent, as part of the continuing disposal of its PFI (private finance initiative) equity portfolio.

It said that as a result of new contract wins and extensions – including the AMP6 programme for Thames Water, the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station project, and a number of additional contracts for Crossrail – the Costain group had finished the year with “a high quality order book” up 25% at £3.0 billion (€3.6 billion) – £2.4 billion (€2.9 billion) in 2012 – of which over 90% was repeat orders. It said that more than £750 million (€902.7 million) of work had been secured for 2014, compared to a figure at the end of 2012 of over £700 million (€842.6 million) secured for 2013.

In addition, Costain said it had a strong preferred bidder position on contracts worth over £400 million (€481.5 million), and the level of tendering activity across the group’s targeted markets remained high. It added that the group finished the year with a positive net cash position.