Re Contract

Balfour Beatty PLC
24 January 2001


BALFOUR BEATTY CONSTRUCTION AWARDED £40.5M CONTRACT AT GREENPARK, READING
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Balfour Beatty Construction Ltd, the UK building and regional civil
engineering business of the international engineering, construction and
services group, has been awarded a £22m contract by Prudential Property
Investment Managers Ltd to construct two buildings on plot 11 at its GreenPark
business park in Reading, Berkshire.  In October the company started work on
Building 12 under a £18.5m contract.

Commenting today, Mike Welton, Chief Executive, said, 'This award is further
evidence of the increasing efficiency and quality offered to the market by
Balfour Beatty's building and building services businesses.  Through a
combination of improved supply chain management, increased site efficiency and
customer-friendly working practices, Balfour Beatty's order book is at record
levels in the building sector'.

All three buildings have been pre-let and will form part of the new European
headquarters for Cisco Systems Inc.

Building 12 will take 13 months to complete and involves the construction of
offices on four floors, together with two floors of undercroft car parking.
It will result in 130,000 sqft of lettable space.

The two structures on plot 11 will provide 200,000 sqft of space and will be
glass clad with a climate wall, designed as a facetted, curved, floating sheet
of glass, on the M4-facing elevation.

The project teams also include architects, HOK International Ltd (for Building
12) and EPR (for plot 11); structural engineer, Whitby Bird & Partners; M&E
engineer, Hoare Lea & Partners; quantity surveyor, Gardiner & Theobald.

Enquiries to:
Tim Sharp
020 7216 6884