Balfour Beatty expects $1.2bn in Dubai orders

zoom

BUILDING BUSINESS: Balfour Beatty is eyeing $1.2 billion orders in Dubai. (Getty Images)

Britain’s biggest builder expects to generate more than $1.2 billion in orders from Dubai in 2008 amid a slowing UK construction industry.

Balfour Beatty, the construction company helping to build facilities for the 2012 London Olympics, is already generating about 10 percent of its revenues from Dubai, CEO Ian Tyler said in an interview in Dubai on Tuesday.

“Dubai is a growing part of our business and will continue to grow notwithstanding current market conditions,” he said. “Dubai will contribute somewhere around 4.5 billion dirhams.”

Balfour Beatty said first-half profit advanced 77 percent on Aug 13, as it added more contracts in Dubai. Net income rose to 106 million pounds ($201 million), or 23.9 pence a share, from 60m pounds, or 13.9 pence, a year earlier, the London-based company said.

The contractor has already spent about $640 million this year on acquisitions in Europe and the US. It has already bagged orders in excess of $462m in Dubai in 2008.

Balfour Beatty’s Dubai turnover has grown twelvefold in the last six years and its workforce has grown from 2,000 to 16,000, according to general manager Grahame McCaig.

The company today opened a new training and development centre in Jebel Ali which will offer construction workers training in a range of site skills.

Print | Email | Discuss this article

| Share |

READERS' COMMENTS

Click here to post a comment

Add your Comment All posts are sent to the administrator for review and are published only after approval. ArabianBusiness.com reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Arabian Business would like to point out that only comments relevant to the story will be published. Any containing personal insults or inappropriate language will not be approved.
Name *
Remember me on this computer
Email *	(Your email address will not be published)
City
Country
Subject *
Comment *
Notify me of further comments
Enter the words above *
Please click post only once - your comment will not be published immediately.

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM