Questor share tip: May Gurney on the track to recovery Once the charges and closed business are stripped out, profit fell to £11.1m from £14.2m. On the positive side, May Gurney managed to secure £314m of new work and contract extensions in the first half of 2012 - representing an acceleration of the £290m of new deals secured in the first six months of last year. This means the company's order book is maintained at £1.5bn and management says there are a further £1.7bn of contract extensions and about £4bn of bidding opportunities in the pipeline. All of this meant that the group maintained its dividend at 2.79p, which will be paid on January 7. The prospective yield is 4.7pc rising to 4.9pc next year. The interim dividend will cost the group about £1.95m. The balance sheet is comfortable and borrowings are within guidance, with net debt at £77m. Cash generated from continuing operations hit £15.4m in the period. The company also needs to appoint a new chief executive after the departure of Philip Fellowes-Prynne at the time of the warning. Willie MacDiarmid was appointed as interim chief executive in September. New management will have to build bridges with the City after the company's series of hiccoughs. Questor said buy after the profit warning when the shares were at just 99p - and they are now 78pc ahead. However, they have been tipped as a buy as high as 280p before the contract problems were announced. The risk now, after such a strong recovery, would be from a marked deterioration in trading or further costs issues. However, the earnings multiple of 7.3 this year falling to just 6.8 appears too low. May Gurney shares remains a buy for recovery.