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Balfour Beatty warns it will miss forecasts in tight conditions

 

Jamie Dunkley
Monday 29 April 2013 13:44 BST
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Olympic Park developer Balfour Beatty today warned that its 2013 results are likely to miss City forecasts because of tough market conditions in the UK.

The company, which built the Aquatic Centre for last year’s Games, said profits across its domestic business are set to be £50 million lower than expected.

It blamed a “challenging environment” in which “customers can impose increasingly stringent conditions onto contractors”. Balfour said the shortfall had been discovered as part of an internal review. Boss Andrew Naughton said he will take charge of the unit to address the issues. “Our subcontractors continue to operate under considerable financial strain,” the group added.  Balfour said trading in its other businesses was in line with expectations, even with a £10 million fall in profits from its rail operations in Germany and weakness in its Australian professional services unit.

The shares fell by more than 7%.

The news came as a separate report from the Public Accounts Committee dismissed the Government’s Infrastructure Plan as “a long list of projects requiring huge amounts of money, not a real plan with a strategic vision and clear priorities”.

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