Balfour expects to restart dividend from half year

(Reuters) - Balfour Beatty Plc (BALF.L) expects to restart its dividend at the half year stage in 2016, the construction firm said on Tuesday, as its turnaround plan showed early signs of bearing fruit with a stabilisation of its order book and revenues.

Citing challenges with its historic UK projects, Balfour posted a wider underlying pretax loss from continuing operations, before one-off items, of 123 million pounds for the financial year ended Dec. 31.

It had reported a comparable loss of 80 million pounds a year earlier.

Balfour reiterated it expected to be rid of 90 percent of its problematic domestic construction contracts by the end of this year.

The company is reviewing all its businesses due to loss-making contracts in Britain, the Middle East and Asia, which pushed it deep into the red at the half-year stage.

As well as scrapping its dividend for 2015, the 107-year-old company has cancelled a share buyback and reorganised its pension fund payments to strengthen its balance sheet.

Balfour said on Tuesday it would reinstate a dividend at an appropriate level in August, but did not give further details.

Its order book from continuing operations fell to 11 billion pounds from 11.4 billion pounds a year earlier.

(Reporting by Esha Vaish in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Potter)