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Carillion sees slowdown in pace of new orders post-Brexit

* Spending delay by UK government after Brexit vote

* Conditions in Middle East expected to remain challenging

* 2017 revenue order visibility 70 pct

* Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) down 4.4 pct, 2nd top FTSE midcap loser (Adds CEO, analyst comments, details, share movement)

By Esha Vaish

Dec (Shanghai: 600875.SS - news) 7 (Reuters) - Carillion Plc (Frankfurt: 924047 - news) , a British building support services company, said the pace of new order intake had slowed in the second half of the year, partly due to a spending delay by the government following Britain's vote to leave the European Union.

The company, which maintains railways, roads and military bases, had seen some slowdown in the UK either releasing contracts to the market or awarding contracts that had been bid on, Chief Executive Richard Howson told Reuters.

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Although most UK construction and support services managed to avoid an immediate post-Brexit hit as many had forecast, recent warnings from Capita (LSE: CPI.L - news) and Mitie have highlighted that Brexit uncertainty has caused customers to delay decisions.

Carillion said on Wednesday it had won orders and probable orders worth about 2 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) in the six months ending Dec. 31, compared with 2.5 billion pounds in the preceding six months.

The company partly blamed a slower pace of contract awards from the Middle East, particularly in Oman, as the region grapples with low oil prices. Howson said the conditions in the region were expected to remain challenging.

Carillion stock was down 4.4 percent at 245 pence by 1101 GMT, making it the second top FTSE midcap loser. It was also the most shorted stock across the FTSE 350.

The company, which has been increasing its exposure to support services work, said it expected to match expectations of 2016 pretax profit of about 180 million pounds, which would represent a roughly 16 percent year-on-year increase.

"Numbers to be characterised by strong revenue growth but margin down slightly overall," N+1 Singer analysts wrote.

"Overall, no reason to get involved here and much better ways to play UK infrastructure spend," they added, pointing to peers such as Balfour Beatty (Other OTC: BAFBF - news) , Costain and Morgan Sindall (LSE: MGNS.L - news) .

Carillion forecast a total and probable orders pipeline of about 16 billion pounds by the year end, lower than the 17.4 billion pounds it had forecast by the end of June.

Order visibility for 2017 revenue stood at about 70 percent, lower than the 84 percent visibility it had reported last year for 2016 revenues.

However, Howson said he expected Britain's divorce from the EU to stimulate government spending, with Britain having promised an extra 23 billion pounds of infrastructure investment over the next five years.

"Over the next 3-7 years the big opportunities are in UK infrastructure as the country... prepares itself to compete from a different base from other European countries," Howson said. "I can see some of those bids now starting to come into our pipeline." ($1 = 0.7916 pounds) (Reporting by Esha Vaish in Bengaluru. Editing by Jane Merriman and Susan Thomas)