MARKETS SPECTATOR: Transfield scrapes back ground

Transfield shares rose as much as 8.5 per cent today after the mining services, engineering and construction company said it had won $157 million worth of contracts in Australia and New Zealand.

The company’s shares closed up 6 cents, or 6.8 per cent, to 94.5 cents after earlier rising as high as 96 cents after it told the ASX it had won a power distribution grid component replacement contract in Victoria, a gas plant engineering contract in New Zealand, a power contract in the Pilbara and a drilling contract in Queensland Cooper Basin.

Today’s investor response to news of Tranfield’s contract announcement goes a little way to repairing the 26 per cent decline in the company’s stock price since May 21 when Transfield cut its net profit forecast by as much as a third because the world’s biggest mining companies have this year slashed spending, cutting their arrangements with mining services companies, including Transfield.

This year Transfield’s stock is down 52 per cent.