Balfour Beatty (LON:BBY) Releases Earnings Results

Balfour Beatty (LON:BBY) announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday. The company reported GBX 21.70 earnings per share for the quarter, Digital Look Earnings reports. Balfour Beatty had a return on equity of 23.73% and a net margin of 2.77%.

Here are the key takeaways from Balfour Beatty’s conference call:

• Strong first-half performance: Revenue rose 8% to £5.6 billion, profit from earnings-based businesses increased 42% to £153 million, and earnings per share rose 51% to 21.7 pence.
• Management slightly upgraded full-year guidance to low double-digit growth in profit from operations, raised average net cash guidance to £1.5 billion–£1.7 billion, and remains on track to complete its £200 million share buyback by year-end.
• The order book remained strong at £22.9 billion, supported by momentum in U.K. power transmission, defense and transport, as well as U.S. buildings. The company expects to convert much of its £6 billion–£8 billion power-project pipeline into orders over the next 18 months.
• U.S. Construction returned to profitability, with revenue up 19%, while data-center and aviation wins—including $350 million of data-center awards and a $361 million airport mandate—are expanding the growth opportunity.
• U.S. civils remains loss-making despite a substantially reduced loss, with the Texas highway project still affecting results; management expects improvement as the project approaches final closeout but is maintaining a cautious approach to expanding the division.

Balfour Beatty Stock Down 0.5%

Shares of LON:BBY opened at GBX 918.27 on Friday. Balfour Beatty has a 1 year low of GBX 560.50 and a 1 year high of GBX 973. The firm’s 50-day moving average is GBX 862.74 and its two-hundred day moving average is GBX 808.43. The firm has a market capitalization of £4.40 billion, a PE ratio of 17.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.75 and a beta of 0.59. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 89.50, a current ratio of 1.02 and a quick ratio of 0.84.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts recently weighed in on BBY shares. Jefferies Financial Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a GBX 985 price target on shares of Balfour Beatty in a research note on Thursday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their target price on shares of Balfour Beatty from GBX 990 to GBX 1,100 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Berenberg Bank boosted their price objective on Balfour Beatty from GBX 870 to GBX 1,070 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of GBX 1,051.67.

Balfour Beatty Company Profile

Balfour Beatty is a leading international infrastructure group. With 26,000 employees across the UK, US and Hong Kong, we’re leading the transformation of our industry to meet the challenges of the future.

Trusted by our customers to deliver sustainable solutions and strengthen communities, we finance, develop, build, maintain and operate the increasingly complex and critical infrastructure that supports national economies and deliver projects at the heart of local communities.

Collaborating with governments, our customers and partners, we deliver powerful new solutions, shape thinking, create skylines and inspire a new generation of talent to be the change-makers of tomorrow.