Vinci keeps 2017 goals, first-quarter sales rise 5.1 percent

By Dominique Vidalon

PARIS (Reuters) - France's Vinci (SGEF.PA) posted a 5.1 percent rise in first-quarter sales on Thursday, helped by acquisitions, robust activity in concessions and a recovering French construction market.

Europe's biggest construction and concessions company kept forecasts that operating and net profit as well as consolidated revenue would rise this year.

Total revenue reached 8.44 billion euros (7.06 billion pounds) in the quarter. Excluding currency fluctuations and acquisitions or disposals, revenue rose 3.5 percent year-on-year, Vinci said.

After three years of decline, the construction business - the biggest contributor to group revenue - achieved sales growth of 0.2 percent like-for-like, confirming the improvement seen in the fourth quarter of 2016, the company said.

Meanwhile revenue from the concessions business rose 3.3 percent, driven by a 12.7 percent jump in the airport segment.

To counter years of construction sector decline in France, Vinci has been expanding into faster-growing and more profitable concessions such as airports and motorways as well as in energy engineering.

Order intake for the quarter was 9.5 billion euros, up 9 percent from the same period a year earlier, reflecting

the first contracts won under the Grand Paris Express, a large-scale infrastructure expansion plan for the French capital.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Sarah White)