(LEAD) Hyundai E&C Q3 net more than doubles

SEOUL, Oct. 24 (Yonhap) -- Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., South Korea's fourth-largest builder by sales, said Friday that its net income more than doubled on-year in the third quarter on increased sales.

Net profit came to 124.4 billion won (US$89 million) in the July-September
period, compared with 48.7 billion won a year ago, Hyundai Engineering &
Construction said in a regulatory filing.
Sales rose 32 percent on-year to 1.8 trillion won and operating profit gained 36
percent to 122.5 billion won, it said.
Shares of Hyundai Engineering fell 2 percent to 44,200 won as of 10:20 a.m. on
the Korea Exchange.
Increased orders from the Middle East to build industrial plants were the main
reason behind the good third quarter performance, with the domestic property
market remaining sluggish, Hyundai Engineering said.
In the first three quarters of the year, Hyundai Engineering posted 11.7 trillion
won in new orders, the builder said.
As of the end of September, its order backlog came to 39.2 trillion won, which
will take about five years to complete, it said.
The company predicts that it will achieve its sales target of 6.5 trillion won,
as well as its operating profit goal of 450.8 billion won for this year, as the
fourth-quarter outlook for overseas markets is relatively positive.