London Underground contracts help Balfour's pre-tax profits soar to pounds 130m.

CIVIL engineering group Balfour Beatty said pounds 1.2bnof deals from London Underground helped it boost annual pre-tax profits by 10% to pounds 130m.

Balfour said its order book grew 14% to pounds 5.8bn in 2003,mainly due to two Public Private Partnership deals to upgrade the Tube.

The firm has a 20% share in the Metronet consortium that has two lucrative 30-year concessions with London Underground.

The contracts were among six PPP deals Balfour sealed, including work to upgrade roads, schools and hospitals.

The group was forced to make provision for the loss of three rail maintenance contracts,due to Network Rail's decision to take maintenance in-house.

However,it said exceptional profits from disposals led to a net exceptional annual profit of pounds 5m.

The group said it had already secured ``a very significant proportion'' of expected current year UK work.

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Balfour Beatty said Tube deals significantly boosted its pre-tax profits

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Title Annotation:	Business
Publication:	Daily Post (Liverpool, England)
Date:	Mar 11, 2004
Words:	155
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