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By Paul Sandle and Esha Vaish
LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - As Britain's construction industryreels from its sharpest downturn for seven years, it iscompanies that operate under longer-term contracts and have lessexposure to London that are better weathering market uncertaintycaused by the Brexit vote.
Builders' merchant Travis Perkins said on Tuesdaythe vote had created "considerable uncertainty" in the outlookfor the building supplies market as it abandoned its target ofincreasing earnings by around a tenth this year.
The company's fortunes are closely tied to housingtransactions and consumer confidence. Its customers range frombig building firms to sole traders like plumbers and kitchenfitters as well as consumer DIYers, served through itsbusinesses Wickes, BSS, Toolstation and Tile Giant.
The firm's announcement came as the Markit/CIPS UKConstruction Purchasing Managers' Index inched down to 45.9 inJuly from 46.0 in June - the lowest reading since June 2009 andsome way below the 50 mark that divides growth from contraction.
"It's just very difficult to predict what Q4, and Q1 and Q2of next year looks like," said John Carter, chief executive ofTravis Perkins, whose share price has fallen 19 percent sincethe June 23 vote to leave the European Union.
By contrast, construction company Morgan Sindall upgraded its outlook on Tuesday in its first update since thevote, saying it had strong visibility this year.
Its customers tend to offer longer-term contracts for biggerprojects. They are government bodies who fund social housing,road projects or public space regeneration, educationauthorities planning new facilities and commercial customers whosign the company up for long-planned office refurbishments.
In the wake of the referendum shock, it is benefiting fromwhat it described as a "high quality secured order book" worthmore than 3 billion pounds ($4 billion). Around a third of thattotal is for the second half of this year, about another thirdfor 2017 and the rest for beyond that.
"If we see any slowdown we'll react according. But we're notseeing anything at the moment in the markets we operate in,"Morgan Sindall CEO John Morgan told Reuters.
Morgan Sindall's resilience in the near term echoes that ofKier Group, a company whose activities range frombuilding power stations to outsourcing work for local councils.Kier said earlier this month that the vote to leave the EU hadnot affected its business.
LONDON FACTOR
Share prices of companies across the construction industryhave been hammered down by the Brexit vote.
While Morgan Sindall and Kier have suffered, losing 16 and15 percent respectively, they have fared better thanhousebuilders, which are more exposed to shorter-term consumerconfidence.
Shares in Barratt, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey and Berkeley are down 26, 20, 22 and 21 percentrespectively since the referendum.
Exposure to London is also a factor for companies linked tothe property market.
Much of the money in the capital's property market comesfrom foreign or domestic investors buying at the high end. Theyare more affected by Brexit-induced currency fluctuations andrecent tax changes than in the rest of Britain where demand ismainly from British first-time home buyers and homeowners.
Only 10 percent of Morgan Sindall's housing business is inLondon and that part is not focused on the high-end sector, saidthe company's CEO. "People only talk about Brexit if we're herein London. Outside of London, it seems to be very much businessas usual," Morgan said.
Bovis, which builds almost no homes in London, reported itsreservation rate, where buyers pay a fee to take a property offthe market, was flat in the first half of the year, suggestinglittle impact from the vote.
However London-focused estate agent Foxtons blameda 42 percent drop in first-half profit on the Brexit vote,saying it led to a fall in transactions which is likely to lastuntil the end of the year.
($1 = 0.7528 pounds)
(Additional reporting by Costas Pitas; Writing by Sarah Young;Editing by Pravin Char)
