While BHP Billiton’s staggering record profit has put a fire under the resources sector today, Babcock & Brown has rebuilt confidence in the debt-depending financial engineering stocks with an impressive 53% jump in half-year profit to $250 million.

And just to show that the recent credit ripples haven’t hurt, the full-year net profit forecast of $550 million revealed at the May AGM has been increased to $590 million. Babcock & Brown shares soared as much as 15.5% this morning and by midday were $2.64 stronger at $25.24, while its Big Brother Macquarie Bank rocketed $4.60 to $79.45.

However, Babcock is still well down from its record high of more than $34 in June and this is partly explained by the falling value of its investments in listed associates, such as hedge fund manager Everest Babcock & Brown. The unbooked profit on these plays has plunged from $433 million to $189 million since 30 June as the collective market value fell back to $1.4 billion.

Revenue increased by 42% to $804 million and the Babcock boys were keen to stress that recurring annuity and co-investment income from its various funds was up by 79% so it is becoming less depending on lumpy private equity plays, corporate advisory mandates or performance fees.

With the Alinta carve-up, the Primelife revamp into Babcock & Brown Communities and its latest European infrastructure fund raising, Babcock is now managing a whopping $60 billion in assets, although this remains well shy of Macquarie Bank which is up above $200 billion.

The profits came from little noticed and often unglamorous operations such as developing and flogging loads of windfarms in Europe and the US, strong demand for leasing Babcock’s 245-strong aeroplanes out of Japan and flogging dowdy German apartments and retail assets.

Just like Macquarie, real estate and infrastructure have become the two big drivers for Babcock and it is a globally well balanced operation with 42% of revenue coming out of America, 31% from Europe and just 27% from the Asia Pacific.

All up, CEO Phil Green and his team should take a bow as confidence in the Babcock black box builds again. The only danger on the horizon would be if some of the listed funds continue to underperform because the model is now very much dependent on gouging loads of fees from associated vehicles without putting up much of the cash.