SNC keeps winning new contracts

Article Excerpt

SNC-LAVALIN GROUP INC. $37 (Toronto symbol SNC; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 151.0 million; Market cap: $5.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.8; Dividend yield: 2.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.snclavalin.com) earned $32.5 million, or $0.21 a share, in the three months ended June 30, 2012. That’s down 68.2%, from $102.2 million, or $0.67 a share, a year earlier. The company spent $50 million more than it expected on a power plant in Tunisia and a petrochemical plant in Russia. That was the main reason for the lower earnings. The stock has also come under pressure in the past few months over $56 million U.S. in unusual payments that the company made to agents it hired to secure certain construction contracts. However, this matter has had little impact on SNC’s ability to win new engineering deals: revenue rose 14.2% in the quarter, to $1.9 billion from $1.7 billion. SNC-Lavalin is a buy. buy…