Costain on track to meet full-year expectations

Infrastructure solutions company Costain said on Tuesday that it remains on track to deliver full-year results in line with its expectations following a solid first half.

In a trading update for the six months to 30 June, the group said it continued to perform well, with the order book at £3.7bn, unchanged from the same period last year. In addition it has a preferred bidder position of around £400m and tendering levels remain high.

Costain finished the period with a net cash position of approximately £75m versus £87.5m in June 2017, reflecting the timing of receipts, and the average month-end net cash was circa £90m, compared with £97.3m.

"Costain continues to evolve in a market where technology and innovation across infrastructure are creating a wide range of exciting new opportunities," it said, noting a number of recent technology contract wins, including the M6 J21a-26 smart motorway contract and Motorway Incident Detection and Automated Signalling (MIDAS) technology systems contract for Highways England.

At 1015 BST, the shares were up 2.2% to 441.20p.