Balfour Beatty rejects second Carillion

LONDON (Reuters) - British infrastructure company Balfour Beatty has rejected a second proposal from rival Carillion to merge, citing significant risks the 3 billion pound deal would pose to its business.

Balfour Beatty said on Monday it had rejected Carillion's proposal on the grounds that there was no strategic logic other than to enhance the earnings of the combined group.

Balfour said two weeks ago it had broken off merger talks after Carillion insisted it cancel the planned sale of its U.S. unit Parsons Brinckerhoff and keep it within the merged company.

The approach by Carillion in July followed a difficult 18 months for Balfour Beatty, which has issued a series of profit warnings and lost its chief executive in May.

Reporting its half-year results two days early on Monday, Balfour Beatty said it was performing in line with its most recent trading update.

Underlying pretax profit in the six months to June 27 fell 53 percent to 22 million pounds, hit by a slump in its mechanical and electrical engineering division, which it had already flagged in July.

(Reporting by Li-mei Hoang and Sarah Young)
Culled from Yahoo News.