These three can live with rising costs

Article Excerpt

These three leading industrial companies all face rising costs for labour and raw materials. However, all three continue to win new contracts that will help them offset these expenses. Moreover, all three continue to trade at attractive multiples to earnings. SNC-LAVALIN GROUP INC. $55 (Toronto symbol SNC; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 150.8 million; Market cap: $8.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Dividend yield: 1.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.snclavalin.com) continues to win new contracts, thanks in part to its strong reputation. SNC is a leading Canadian engineering and construction company. It designs and builds large-scale public-works projects, such as roads, bridges, transit systems and water-treatment plants. It also builds mines, chemical plants and electrical-power systems. The company recently won an 18-month contract to provide engineering services to a new offshore natural-gas platform near Venezuela. This new deal follows SNC’s successful completion of a previous contract on the same project in 2010. The company did not say how much this new deal…