Trading on track at Babcock

The company owns the huge Defence Support Group operation at MOD Donnington as well as Walsall emergency vehicle building firm MacNeillie.

The company said it remained in "a healthy financial position". Although it expects its marine work to be lower than last year, due to less work on the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier programme, this would be offset by growth in other sectors.

"The group is trading in line with our expectations and the outlook for the year is unchanged," said Babcock this morning. "The order book and bid pipeline of opportunities have remained stable, and continue to provide confidence in our ability to grow revenue as expected over the medium term."

Babcock has started work on a new £360m contract for the aircraft carriers and the new Type 45 destroyers for the Royal Navy. It has also secured a seven year deal to design and make weapons handling and launch equipment for the South Korean Jangbogo III submarine.

Good momentum in its aviation business has seen it start on a new £500 million emergency medical services contract in Norway, operating 11 fixed-wing ambulance aircraft from summer 2019. Other awards in the period include a contract to upgrade helicopters for the Netherlands Police, a number of aerial fire-fighting contracts in Spain and the renewal of two emergency services contracts in Australia.

It has also started on a 500 million euro military air training contract for the French Air Force.

Babcock said it was it was making progress with vehicle asset support contracts with customers such as the UK MOD, emergency services and airlines as well as long term training contracts. "Whilst we have experienced a slowdown in our rail business since the start of the financial year, this has been offset by growth in other business units within the sector."