ON THE HOT SEAT

SNC-Lavalin’s new chief executive thanks shareholders for their patience with the scandal-laden engineering giant,

MONTREAL— SNC-Lavalin’s new chief executive thanked shareholders Thursday for sticking with the engineering company through the problems that have punished its reputation.

In his first address to an SNCLavalin annual meeting, Robert Card described the company’s problems as both “limited and fixable.” Dealing with the fallout of corruption accusations has been a costly distraction, he said, but clients continue to provide support.

SNC’s revenue and its backlog of orders continued to grow in the first quarter despite a global recession.

Card outlined his strategy to move the firm beyond its past challenges, including the possible sale of noncore infrastructure assets and possibly reducing its stake in other large investments.

Earlier, SNC’s outgoing chairman said changes enacted by the company prevents a reoccurrence of ethical errors. Gwyn Morgan told shareholders that he was as perplexed as them about how such problems could have arisen in the first place.

But Morgan said little can be done if a small number of people deliberately set out to falsify documents to hide poor practices.

The new strategic plan at SNCLavalin follows a tumultuous year that saw the departure of chief executive Pierre Duhaime, after the revelation of $56 million in improper payments to undisclosed agents.

Duhaime was later charged with fraud, along with former vice-president Riadh Ben Aissa, who is in a Swiss jail.

The company has also accepted a 10-year bidding ban from the World Bank for a key subsidiary and affiliates over bribery allegations in Bangladesh and Cambodia.

SNC-Lavalin reported Thursday a first-quarter profit of $53.6 million or 35 cents per share, down from $66 million or 44 cents per share a year ago.

Revenue totalled $1.9 billion, up from $1.79 billion a year ago.

Excluding its infrastructure concession investments, the company said it earned $18.6 million for the quarter compared with $41.2 million in first quarter of 2012.

The infrastructure concession investments earned $35 million in the quarter, up from $25.1million in the first quarter last year.