UPDATE 3-BAM profit dives on property losses, shares drop

* Nine-month net profit down 65.8 pct at 65.4 mln euros

* Q3 sales and profit miss analysts' average forecast

* Adjusts 2009 guidance to lower half of previous range

* Order book at end-Sept down 11 pct at 11.6 bln euros

* Shares down 9.8 pct

(Adds CEO, spokesman comment)

By Greg Roumeliotis

AMSTERDAM, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Dutch builder Royal BAM's (BAMN.AS) nine-month net profit tumbled by two thirds as pricing pressures in its infrastructure units added to its property sector woes, prompting it to temper full-year expectations.

Pretax margins collapsed across its construction, engineering, contracting and public-private partnerships (PPP) divisions on shrinking volumes and cut-throat competition for new contracts, while its property unit swung to a loss.

Shares in BAM, the largest Dutch construction group, were down 9.8 percent at 8.07 euros at 1138 GMT, underperforming the DJ Stoxx construction and materials index .SXOE, which was down 1.55 percent.

"Their property business remains weak, and 2010 will be a difficult year for them in the property market," Royal Bank of Scotland analyst Marc Hesselink said.

BAM, which like Dutch peer Heijmans (HEIJ.AS) has been hit by the downturn in the real estate market, said it still expected 2009 revenue of 8.3 billion euros ($12.4 billion).

However, it said it expected a full-year net profit of at least 100 million euros, having said in August it expected between 100 million and 120 million euros. "We now think it will be closer to 100 rather than 120," a BAM spokesman said.

BAM said net profit in the first nine months of 2009 dived 65.8 percent to 65.4 million euros on revenue of 5.96 billion. Its order book at the end of September fell more than 11 percent to 11.6 billion euros.

On a quarterly basis, BAM reported a third-quarter net profit of 23.5 million euros on revenues of 1.86 billion euros. Analysts in a Reuters poll were expecting a third-quarter net result of 28 million euros on revenues of 2 billion.

WEAK HOME MARKET

The Dutch residential market has stabilised at an unsatisfactory level, but the lack of quality homes makes its long-term prospects positive, BAM said.

The company took property losses of 68 million euros in the Netherlands and 21 million in Ireland and wrote down 40 million in goodwill from Dutch property activities. It benefited, however, from an extraordinary tax gain of 80 million.

BAM expects to sell around 1,500 homes in 2009, having sold more than twice that last year, reaffirming the trend that its rival Heijmans demonstrated earlier this month. [ID:nLC608738]

"Property is one of our core activities and residential construction in normal times could bring a continuous flow of orders. We want to be a property company but there is a lot of misery we have to take care of," BAM chief executive Joop van Oosten said in a conference call.

In its infrastructure business BAM sees strong demand in all its markets in Benelux, Germany and Britain, but pretax margins plummeted from 8.2 percent to 2.6 percent on higher tendering costs.

BAM, which has a 21.5 percent stake in Dutch dredger Van Oord, also reiterated that it would not restart talks about the sale of its stake before May 2010. Van Oord yielded 16 million euros for BAM in the first nine months, down from 33 million. (Editing by David Holmes/Will Waterman) ($1=.6680 Euro)