Morgan Sindall says short term outlook remains challenging

Construction and regeneration group Morgan Sindall said trading, since its profit warning in November, has continued in line with company expectations for the year.

Last month the group warned on full year profit after a further market deterioration in the UK construction industry amid public spending cuts, deferred investment decisions and high levels of competition. Today it added that the short-term outlook remained tough.

"While the short-term outlook for the group into 2013 remains challenging, we are confident in the medium-term outlook from 2014 onwards," it said.

"This reflects our success in securing a number of longer-term opportunities in growing sectors of the market including rail, energy and utilities and infrastructure," it added.

The London headquartered construction services business said its forward order book stands at £3bn with a further £0.7bn of projects at preferred bidder stage.

"In a competitive environment we continue to bid selectively across the group, targeting major project and framework opportunities in all our market sectors and we are already benefiting from increased operational efficiency as a result of the restructuring measures previously announced," it explained.

The company will announce its preliminary results for the year ended December 31st 2012 in February 2013.

Morgan Sindall said it will be reporting the profit on the sale of its equity investments within operating profit, rather than as non-operating profit.

CJ