Two ways to profit from the Liberal win

Article Excerpt

The new Liberal government in Ottawa plans to spend more on roads, bridges and public transit over the next three years. SNC-Lavalin, below, is already working on big public works projects, including a transit line in Toronto and a bridge in Montreal, so it should gain from this new spending. The Liberals are also in favour of certain new pipelines, which should help ShawCor (see next article). SNC-LAVALIN GROUP INC. $42 (Toronto symbol SNC; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 149.8 million; Market cap: $6.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.6; Dividend yield: 2.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.snclavalin.com) is narrowing its focus to engineering projects in the oil and gas, mining and water-treatment industries. To that end, it bought U.K.-based Kentz Corp., which sells engineering and construction services to oil and gas firms, for $2.1 billion in August 2014. The deal also increased SNC’s exposure to fastgrowing regions like the Middle East and Asia. Kentz boosted SNC’s revenue by…