LONDON, Feb 21 (Reuters) - British transport group Go-Ahead posted an 1.8 percent fall in first-half profit, hit byoperational problems at parts of its rail business.
The bus and rail operator on Thursday reported a pretaxprofit of 43.2 million pounds ($66.1 million) for the six monthsto December 29, 2012, in line with analyst forecasts. Revenueswere up 8.1 percent at 1.3 billion pounds.
The company, which operates the Southern, Southeastern andLondon Midland rail franchises, said profit at its rail unitfell 14.5 percent after operational problems at Southern andLondon Midland.
Go-Ahead said profit at its bus business rose 5.4 percentduring the period and that it was on track to grow profits atthe division to 100 million pounds by 2016.
"Looking ahead to the full year, our overall expectationsremain unchanged ... we now expect a greater proportion ofoperating profit to come from the bus division," the companysaid in a statement.
Go-Ahead is expected to post an average pretax profit of83.5 million pounds for the year to the end of June, accordingto a Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S poll of 17 analysts.
Go-Ahead maintained the half year dividend at 25.5 pence pershare.