Rail and highways commissions have added to UK workload, while Asia Pacific and European businesses “continue to trade well in solid markets”.
In an interim management statement for the period from 1 October 2012 to date, the board says that trading remains in line with expectations.
“The group's geographic and sector diversification is providing resilience in challenging economic conditions and our overall outlook for the full year remains unchanged,” the board said.
“Our UK business has performed well in the period. Our rail business is operating with improved utilisation as the signalling work won at the start of last year begins. Our water and environment business is busy with High Speed 2 work and AMP5 framework activity and our defence and aerospace businesses continue to grow. Elsewhere, in our highways and transportation business, we have secured further design work in the period on the later upgraded sections of the M25 motorway as part of our joint venture.
“UK headcount has continued to increase, maintaining the momentum we experienced in the first half of the year.”
The North America business continues to face “difficult trading conditions” but outlook remains unchanged. In the Middle East the negotiation of outstanding contract variations continues to dog the business, “impacting both short term profitability and cash flow performance”.
The board said that the financial position remained strong and on track to report net funds of more than £110m at 31 March 2013.
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