Babcock looks at taking stake in new UK nuclear reactors Babcock International, the FTSE-100 engineering services group that has half of its business with the Ministry of Defence, is looking at taking an equity stake in new UK nuclear power plants. The company, whose work spans maintenance of the Trident submarine fleet to baggage handling at Heathrow, has held talks with Japan's Hitachi over a stake in the new Advanced Boiling Water Reactor stations planned for sites at Oldbury, Gloucestershire, and Wylfa on Anglesey. Hitachi is planning up to six such new reactors under its Horizon programme. Peter Rogers, Babcock chief executive, said: "We told Hitachi we could be an equity partner in the station build. The equity piece would be tens of millions of pounds rather than hundreds of millions. Five years from now I would expect to have a bigger nuclear business. The company, which already has the contract to clean up the Dounreay nuclear plant in Scotland, is also leading a consortium bidding for the £5bn, 20-year contract to decommission Britain's Magnox reactors, due to be awarded in April. Babcock's growing interest in the nuclear market follows another six months of "strong growth," Mr Rogers said, particularly due to the marine division. Group profit before tax rose 32pc to £106m on sales up 9pc to £1.7bn, with a 10pc increase in the dividend signalling the board's "confidence." Underlying profits were up 17pc at £142m. Sales were boosted by increased work on submarine programmes in the UK and Canada, the start-up of the warship refit contract in Australia and ongoing activity on the £6.2bn Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers being assembled at Babcock's Rosyth yard. Mr Rogers said last week's decision by BAE Systems to close its Portsmouth shipyard would have no impact on the carrier assembly at Rosyth, adding: "It looks to me a very sensible commercial decision. There has been all this puff about Portsmouth being the home of shipbuilding but Portsmouth hasn't built a major ship in two to three decades. Babcock added that, with an unchanged order book of £12bn, it had 90pc of this financial year's revenues already contracted. The shares rose 15 to £13.06.