Babcock to shed VT's US defence ops

7th Jul 2011 07:33

Babcock, the FTSE-250 engineering support firm, says it will be looking at selling off the US Defence operations of its recent acquisition, VT Group.The news comes in an interim management statement ahead of Thursday's annual general meeting.The group also says that trading overall has been good in the first quarter, that "synergies" have been realised with VT's operations and that "the order book and bid pipeline remain strong." In addition the board reports it has negotiated a new £500m, five-year revolving credit facility maturing in 2016. This will come as good news to shareholders worried about the debt that was taken on to buy VT.BS