Babcock rides the outsourcing wave

Babcock International, the engineering support services company, continues to be one of the lucky companies benefitting from the financial crisis with full year expectations still on track.

In its final update ahead of its full year results, the firm said the trading environment for the year had been positive and it hoped to build on its success in the coming year.

Customers facing ongoing financial and budgetary constraints had increasingly looked to outsource their support requirements to achieve cost-savings and improved availability or efficiency, the firm said.

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Going forward Babcock said it continued to benefit from excellent visibility of future revenue streams through its long-term contracts, strong order book and bid pipeline.

"The key markets in which the group operates remain strong and we believe that the current economic climate will continue to create significant medium and long-term growth opportunities, both in the UK and overseas," the firm said.

"In this environment we believe we are well placed to benefit from the scale of our operations, the breadth of our experience and our track record of delivering operational and financial efficiencies."

Babcock said its order book had increased to around £12.5bn, after remaining stable at about £12bn for the past 18 months.

Meanwhile its bid pipeline now stands at around £12bn, having risen from £10bn on 31 January 2012.

The firm also announced Sir Nigel Essenhigh, Non-Executive Director, would be retiring from the board at the end of the year after nine years in the job.

He will be stepping down from membership of the Audit & Risk and Remuneration Committees with effect from 31 March 2012, the firm said.