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Babcock says on track to hit full-year targets

* Operating, pretax profit up 7 pct, confirms outlook

* Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) down on poor sector sentiment

* International business seen gaining importance

* Defence sector underpinned by world politics shift (Adds comment on international business, outlook, shares)

By Elisabeth O'Leary

EDINBURGH, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Engineering support and outsourcing services company Babcock International (LSE: BAB.L - news) posted a 7 percent rise in first-half operating profits on Tuesday and said a strong pipeline of opportunities for new orders underpinned its confidence of hitting full-year targets.

However analysts said its share price fell on a comment on slower internal growth and concerns for the outsourcing services sector after a second profit-warning in as many months from Mitie on Monday.

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The shares were down 6 percent at 931 pence by 1154 GMT.

"With (Other OTC: WWTH - news) profit warnings in its sector from Mitie and Capita (LSE: CPI.L - news) there are too many things blowing up in the outsourcing sector and that bothers sentiment," said Panmure analyst Michael Donnelly, who added he was still a buyer of the stock because the outlook appeared to be "upbeat".

Chief Executive Archie Bethel said he saw opportunities for its international business to make up a greater portion of revenues, and indicated that global political changes in the past few months meant that the outlook for the defence sector was strong.

Babcock provides a range of services to the UK Ministry of Defence such as training, support and maintenance of the submarine fleet, surface ship refit work and the management of naval bases.

"I don't see anything happening in the world that makes me think that there isn't a need for the UK and other countries, particularly NATO countries, to maintain and probably enhance defence capabilities," he said.

Babcock, whose biggest single source of revenue is the UK Ministry of Defence, said it had seen little direct impact from Britain's vote to leave the European Union, with underlying operating and pretax profits up 7 percent at 269.7 million pounds ($336 million) and 228.4 million pounds respectively on underlying revenue up 6 percent at 2.493 billion pounds.

Earlier this year Babcock said it expected revenues to increase by 7 percent, with "broadly stable" margins.

The interim dividend rose 7 percent to 6.5 pence.

The company also said it was too early to predict the long term impact of Brexit but saw opportunities for winning more work outside Britain, where customers were looking to cut costs.

"Despite slightly slower organic growth, the board expects the full-year results to be in line with its expectations. We therefore remain confident of making good progress this year and beyond," the company said in its results statement.

It said the value of the order book remained at 20 billion pounds at the end of September, after the company secured 2 billion pounds of new work over the previous six months and maintained its win rate of over 40 percent for bids on new contracts and over 90 percent for rebids.

With 3 billion pounds of opportunities added during the first half of the financial year, the total bid pipeline, which captures those bids which are subject to a formal process, has increased to 10.8 billion pounds," the company said. ($1 = 0.8024 pounds) (Editing by Kate Holton, Greg Mahlich)