Balfour Beatty boosts dividend as annual profits jump

Balfour Beatty (LON: BBY) business boomed in 2022 as governments boosted their infrastructure spending. In its annual results, the company said that its underlying profit from operations jumped by 42% to £279 million. Its profit for the year came in at £290 million.

Balfour Beatty revenue jumps

The annual report showed that the company’s revenue jumped from £8.2 billion to over £8.9 billion. As a result, the firm boosted its dividend from 9p in 2021 to 10.5p. Most importantly, its order book jumped from £16.1 billion to £17.4 billion. In a statement, the company’s CEO Leo Quinn, said:

“The diversified portfolio, both geographically in the UK, US and Hong Kong, and operationally across Construction Services, Support Services and Infrastructure Investments have provided the resilience for the Group to deliver ahead of expectations and grow our order book through the global instability seen in 2022.”

Order book growing

Balfour Beatty has continued bagging orders in the past few months. In November, it bagged a £300 million contract by Mandarin Oriental to build a new office block in Causeway Bay. The office will have 25 floors and will be one of the recent major developments in Hong Kong.

This week, the company announced that it had won a £97 million contract to protect communities in Wales. The two projects will help protect more than 2,500 homes in the region. 

In February, Balfour Beatty won a $242 million (£196 million) contract to design and build a 6.4-mile section of Interstate 70. And in January, the firm won a £1.2 billion lower Thames contract.

Despite the good news, the Balfour Beatty share price has been under pressure. It was trading at 338p on Wednesday, which was about 10% below the year-to-date high of 377p.