Babcock says outlook positive

LONDON (Reuters) - British support services company Babcock International Group (BAB.L: Quote, Profile, Research) reported on Tuesday a 53 percent rise in annual profit and said the outlook for the year was positive.

The biggest supplier of services to the Royal Navy posted adjusted pretax profit of 95 million pounds for the year ending March 2008. The group said it had an order book of 3 billion pounds with a strong bidding pipeline.

"The markets in which we operate remain attractive with good long-term growth prospects," the company said.

Numis analyst Clive Forestier-Walker said he expected the opportunities for Babcock within the civil and nuclear sectors to prove "very significant" over the longer term.

Babcock's underlying basic earnings per share rose 43 percent to 33.40 pence. It increased its full-year dividend to 11.50 pence from 8.05 pence last year.

At 9:20 a.m. Babcock's shares were up 0.5 percent at 601 pence.

It also said the result of talks with the Ministry of Defence relating to new submarine support contacts should become clearer over the next six months.

" We're making really good progress on it and the timing I gave last year was third quarter this calendar year," Peter Rogers, Babcock's chief executive told Reuters in an interview.

During the year Babcock acquired Devonport Management Limited, International Nuclear Solutions and Strachan & Henshaw, but has ruled out making more major purchases in the near term.