Babcock confident of long term, after strong demand boosts profit

LONDON, May 18 (Reuters) - British engineering and support services firm Babcock said it was confident of its long term prospects after it posted a 32 percent rise in full year pretax profit, driven by new contracts and strong demand in its existing businesses.

Babcock, whose largest customer is Britain's Ministry of Defence, said pretax profits rose to 417.7 million pounds ($656.88 million) for the year ended March 31, from 316.1 million a year earlier.

The 124-year old firm reported revenue of 4.5 billion and a order book of around 20 billion pounds, a new high for the group.

($1 = 0.6359 pounds) (Reporting by Li-mei Hoang; editing by James Davey)