Babcock confident on long-term outlook after profit jump

(Adds detail, CEO comment)

By Li-mei Hoang

LONDON, May 18 (Reuters) - British engineering and support services company Babcock expressed confidence in its long-term prospects after posting a 32 percent rise in full-year pretax profit, driven by new contracts and strong demand in its existing businesses.

Chief Executive Peter Rogers said he expects organic growth -- excluding acquisitions -- of about 10 percent in the coming year after pretax profit rose to 417.7 million pounds ($656.9 million) for the year to March 31.

"It's what we expected. And it's what was forecast. For us, it's very straightforward. It's retaining the contracts we've got, delivering so that the contracts keep on growing, and winning new ones," Rogers told Reuters on Monday.

"I can't call it 12 months ahead quite that closely, but you know we'd be looking for 10 percent again this year."

The 124-year-old company reported full-year revenue of 4.5 billion pounds with an order book at a new high of 20 billion pounds. It also raised the final dividend by 10 percent to 23.6 pence per share.

Shares (Frankfurt: DI6.F - news) in the company were up 1.4 percent at 10.96 pounds at 0918 GMT, against a FTSE 100 index up 0.4 percent.

Babcock, which obtains 45 percent of its revenue from contracts with Britain's Ministry of Defence, said that its bid pipeline stood at 10.5 billion pounds.

Rogers, 67, intends to retire within the next couple of years but first wants to continue the company's overseas expansion, building on last year's acquisition of helicopter transport company Avincis.

"Clearly we are focusing on growing our business outside the UK," Rogers said. "Continental Europe, Australia, Canada. More in Africa. I think Mozambique could be a serious-sized business within five years." ($1 = 0.6359 pounds) (Editing by David Goodman)