Cazenove had to erase all the profit gains it had previously been
Cazenove had to erase all the profit gains it had previously been forecasting for 2003, which now looks like being a flat year.A fact not reflected in M&C shares. Although down 2.5p to 196.5p yesterday, they still trade on a forward price-earnings ratio of 15. That anticipates a trading recovery that is simply not in evidence. Sell.Balfour Beatty strength at home offsets US woesBalfour Beatty is one of the top three construction and engineering groups in this country and it is a class act.There were a couple of hiccups in the 2002 results, reported yesterday, but the overall picture is of a group competing well in good markets. While private-sector expenditure is down, Balfour Beatty gets 80 per cent of its revenues by working for the state or quasi-state bodies.
One problem revealed yesterday, which required a “significant” provision, is that some of its big US engineering projects have cost over-runs. The company will try to recover these extra costs in time but the news spooked the City – particularly since an exact figure was never given. Also, a customer of its Barking power station went bust, meaning it loses out on an attractively priced contract to sell electricity at above market prices.These things aside, Balfour Beatty has an order book of £5.1bn. The British government continues to outsource infrastructure work via the PFI, such as road-building, and Network Rail, the successor to Railtrack, ought to provide large quantities of work for Balfour Beatty – the largest rail maintenance player.The group is ambitious and came close to a big acquisition in the US last year. But risks are limited by the fact that the group has a policy of carrying no debt.
Its shares closed down 5p at 154p, putting the stock on a forward multiple of about nine That’s a little ahead of an out-of-favour sector Hold.. Sir Patrick Moore was born in 1923 and has presented The Sky at Night on the BBC for more than 45 years. Because of a childhood illness, he was educated at home; aged 11, he was made the youngest member of the British Astronomical Association and became its president 50 years later. He has written more than 100 books, is a prolific composer and used to need little encouragement to show off his skills as a xylophone-player. Sir Patrick was knighted in 2001 and lives in Selsey, West Sussex, with his cat Jeannie. The reason being that it’s not too unlike our own planet and there might be some kind of life there It would not be Martians, I fear; only single-cell life.