Babcock & Brown pretax up 8percent

Mon 30 Mar, 2009 11:33

By Cecilia Valente and Philip Waller

LONDON (Reuters) -- Infrastructure manager Babcock & Brown Public Partnerships (BBPP) is changing its name to distance itself from the similarly-named Australian company which has gone into administration.

BBPP, which posted an 8 percent rise in 2008 pretax profit, also said on Monday it was taking in-house the investment advice it had been getting from a company owned by its Australian peer.

The company, which manages UK public private partnership projects in health, education and other sectors, said it would rename itself International Public Partnerships, subject to shareholder approval.

BBPP said it was buying the rights to advice services previously supplied by Babcock & Brown Investment Management (BBIM), part of Australian Babcock & Brown which went into administration earlier this month.

It did not disclose the deal's value.

"Transferring advisory and management responsibilities away from Babcock & Brown will remove the current uncertainties over management continuity," BBPP Chief Executive Giles Frost said.

BBPP has developed between 2 billion pounds and 3 billion of PPP projects in the last eight years, encompassing about 50 assets in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Projects have included school development and maintenance in Tower Hamlets in London and courts, doctors' surgeries and police stations. The company uses sub-contractors to do the work but manages the overall process itself.

Frost said the company intended to continue its focus on existing markets, although it was considering getting involved in new areas, such as helping to supply electricity transmission lines linking offshore wind farms to the UK's national grid.

The company noted the relative stability afforded by governments' willingness to use PPP and PFI projects to kick-start struggling economies, he said.

"We've not seen any slowdown in opportunities being brought forward by governments," Frost said.

BBPP said its pretax profit in 2008 was 12.2 million pounds, compared with 11.3 million the previous year.

Its net asset value stood at 431.8 million pounds at the end of December 2008, up from 330.4 million in 2007.

The company said its portfolio and pipeline of public infrastructure investments "will continue to provide attractive income and capital growth."

It said it would pay a dividend of 5.4 pence per share for 2008.

At 10:11 a.m., shares in the company were up 6.7 percent at 91-1/2 pence.

(Editing by Simon Jessop and David Holmes)