Balfour Beatty reinstates dividends, to start £50m share buyback in Jan

The company on Wednesday said the year-end order book was expected to be around £17bn, up from £14.3bn. Full year group revenue was expected to be in line with the prior year’s £8.4bn and profit from operations forecast to be in line with the expectations.

It added that full-year average monthly net cash was now forecast to be around £500m, ahead of the previous guidance of £430m - £460m.

The company also said it won £1bn in other contracts, including a runway project at Hong Kong’s airport, UK motorway work and a US interstate highway project. All its sites were now open and operating under local regulations.

“Given the resilience of the group's performance throughout the year, despite the impact of Covid-19, the board intends to pay a final dividend at the group's full year results. In addition, as a first step in a programme of returning capital to shareholders, Balfour Beatty intends to commence an initial £50m share buyback programme from January 2021.

Balfour Beatty said it continued to expect that the earnings-based businesses will report a more normalised operating profit in 2021, broadly in line with 2019 and expected to restart disposals from its infrastructure investments portfolio in 2021.

Chief executive Leo Quinn said: "As the impact of COVID-19 reduces, we are seeing positive momentum across the business. Ours is an industry that underpins economies: going forward, it will help to drive recovery, including new jobs, new skills and a greener future.”

The company added that current chair Philip Aiken would be stepping down at the next annual general meeting in May 2021.