UPDATE 1-Aveva sees results ahead of forecasts, shares up

(Adds detail, analyst comment, share price)

LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) - British engineering technology company Aveva Group Plc (AVV.L) said it sees full-year results slightly ahead of market forecasts after a particularly strong third quarter, boosting its shares over 4 percent.

Aveva, which supplies technology for use in ships, power stations and oil rigs, said on Wednesday it had seen continued progress in the fourth quarter and expected yearly results to be "slightly ahead of current market consensus expectations".

In January, the company had said its full-year results would be significantly ahead of where forecasts stood at that time.

"Aveva has performed strongly in the year to March 31 2008," Chief Executive Richard Longdon said in a trading update.

"We continue to provide our clients in the oil & gas, power and marine markets with innovative solutions that allow them to deliver their projects as fast and as cost efficiently as possible in very busy market conditions," Longdon added.

The company had been expected to report pretax profit before exceptional items and amortisation of about 44.75 million pounds ($88.2 million) according to the average of eight forecasts given to Reuters Estimates, up from 28.08 million last year.

Shares in the company were up 4.4 percent at 1,138 pence by 0825 GMT, valuing Aveva at around 767.5 million pounds. Analysts at brokerage Numis moved their rating on the stock back to "buy" from "add" after the statement and increased their price target to 1,320p from 1,250p.

"We believe that there has been an upwards drift in consensus in recent weeks and therefore we are upgrading our full-year 2008 EPS (earnings per share forecast) by around 7 percent and full-year 2009 by around 10 percent," Numis said in a note. (Reporting by Mike Elliott; Editing by David Holmes)