Balfour Beatty Makes New £118m Risk Provision

The crisis in Balfour Beatty (Other OTC: BAFBF - news) 's UK construction business has resulted in the company making further provisions of £118m - on top of a £205m hit already announced.

The development was contained in the troubled infrastructure firm's final results for 2014, which reported a pre-tax loss from continuing operations of £304m.

It had made a loss of £49m in the previous year.

The company, which issued four profit warnings in 2014, had said in January that recommendations by auditors would result in a £70m additional hit to profits in the UK construction division.

It had previously taken £135m in provisions, relating to a string of problems including cost over-runs, skills shortages and weak controls.

The results statement said: "In January 2015, having just received the results of the KPMG review on the operational issues in the UK construction business, the board announced £70m of contract write-downs and that it would also assess the overall level of contract risk provisions in that business - the outcome of which would be announced at the full-year results in March 2015.

"The Board has now completed this process and concluded that further risk provisions of £118m are appropriate."

KPMG's investigation examined the company's focus on commercial controls, on 'cost to complete' and contract value forecasting and reporting at "project level".

Balfour Beatty, which has a contract to help convert London's Olympic Stadium into a new home for West Ham United FC, confirmed there would be no dividend but it hoped to resume payments to shareholders next year.

Chief executive Leo Quinn said: "Over the next two years we should work through the severe legacy of "problem" construction projects.

"However, in tackling the cultural change required to ensure these issues are behind us, we face major short-term challenges.

"The key is that we are determined to address this through self-help.

"Our transformation programme, Build to Last, is gaining rapid traction and we are driving initial improvements of £200m cash in, £100 million cost out over 24 months.

"In addition, our investments portfolio will provide the financial flexibility of both reliable income and the sale of maturing assets into a strong market."

"To maintain balance sheet strength throughout this period, we have already cancelled the share buyback and re-phased our pension fund payments with the support of the trustee.

"We have also decided not to recommend a final dividend this year, but expect to reinstate the dividend at an appropriate level by March 2016.

"I remain convinced that all our operations can achieve industry-standard performance as markets improve.

"The real prize is a sustainable return to profitable growth, built on the Group’s unique capabilities, underpinned by leaner, stronger processes and flawless execution.

Its share price, which has fallen 17% over the past 12 months, was 2.2% down when the FTSE 100 opened for business on Wednesday.