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SNC-Lavalin offices are seen in in downtown Montreal.Mario Beauregard

There was a time when many investors believed SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. would have a tough time emerging from a damaging corruption crisis that battered the engineering firm's reputation and shredded its market value.

What started as a surprise disclosure of $56-million worth of undocumented payments five years ago spiralled into one of Canada's biggest corporate ethics scandals. Along the way, police arrested SNC's former chief executive officer and Swiss prosecutors obtained a conviction against another senior manager for bribing the playboy son of deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The company itself was charged in 2015 with corruption and fraud in Canada.

But now, SNC-Lavalin's top executive believes the end of that damaging chapter is in sight. And he has a clear vision for what's next: Becoming the world's biggest engineering and construction company.

"We are heading for the top in what we do and that's the aim," CEO Neil Bruce told The Globe and Mail in an interview on Sept. 14 at SNC's headquarters in Montreal. "No. 1 is always the goal. I don't want to be second."

Following the transformative acquisitions of Britain-based Kentz Corp. Ltd. in 2014 and WS Atkins earlier this year, SNC estimates it now ranks second in market value among engineering and construction firms globally, with a capitalization of $9.5-billion. Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. of Pasadena, Calif., announced a cash-and-stock deal last month to buy CH2M Hill Cos. Ltd. to cement its top spot.

The Atkins purchase in particular has allowed SNC to widen its geographic footprint and reduce risk by increasing consulting revenue and lowering its exposure to fixed-price contracts, which can leave engineering firms on the hook for cost overruns.

Mr. Bruce's optimism is bolstered by a belief that as soon as this month, the Canadian government will start a process to consider adopting so-called DPAs, deferred prosecution agreements, to deal with white-collar crime.

SNC is keen to strike a formal settlement with the government to resolve outstanding charges against the company and Mr. Bruce said public consultations on DPAs would mark a key step towards that end. SNC-Lavalin has repeatedly called on Ottawa to consider adopting such agreements, which are already in place in places such as Britain and the United States.

Under DPAs, companies typically agree to pay fines and bolster their ethics and compliance systems with external oversight in exchange for suspending and potentially dropping legal proceedings against them. Mr. Bruce sees a DPA for SNC-Lavalin as a way of levelling the playing field with international rivals. It's clear the Scotsman, who grew up in a small fishing village called Portlethen, just south of Aberdeen, is eager to move on from the crisis.

"The costs and the distraction has been really large," Mr. Bruce said in a recent meeting with analysts, adding that the company has also worked through a series of profit-challenged contracts signed by previous leaders. SNC-Lavalin has overhauled its board of directors and its senior management team, whose members have an average tenure of three years.

SNC shares dropped sharply on the day the criminal charges were announced, but they are up 34 per cent since then. A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for September, 2018.

Mr. Bruce, whose father was also an engineer before he switched careers to become a minister in the United Free Church of Scotland, has been given increasingly greater responsibility since being recruited to transform SNC's oil and gas business. Directors appointed him CEO in September, 2015, and tasked him with fixing the company's spotty earnings performance and executing on key contracts such as Toronto's Eglinton LRT. As part of that effort, he implemented a sweeping cost-cutting program.

The CEO's goal is to deliver consolidated earnings per share of $5 by 2020, nearly double the $2.58 it reported in 2016.

One of the key momentum drivers will be the company's nuclear business, where SNC is working on upgrades of Ontario's Darlington and Bruce reactors. Opportunities also exist to build new reactors in Argentina and China, said analyst Maxim Sytchev of National Bank. The acquisition of Atkins also brings a strong capability in decommissioning work to the mix, Mr. Bruce said.

SNC has no plans to shop its stake in Toronto's Highway 407 toll road because it has plenty of future earnings power, the CEO said. "If someone wanted to acquire part of our stake at a future value, absolutely we'd listen to that," he said. "But at the moment we just see it as an immature asset that's going to go up in value."

Getting Mr. Bruce, 57, to talk about himself is like asking Coca-Cola for its formula, to borrow a phrase from writer Stephanie Mansfield. But this much can be said: A fan and player of European football (the kind "where you use your feet," he quips) and self-proclaimed non-extrovert brings a new ethos to the engineering firm's CEO suite. And as the father of a six-year-old girl, he is resolute in carving out time for her daily. "In business, you can get all consumed in stuff. And ultimately, there's more to life than just that."

In July, SNC-Lavalin closed the largest deal in Neil Bruce's two years as CEO: the $3.6-billion acquisition of WS Atkins. A few details about the addition:

Headquarters

Britain

Employees18,000

Revenue

£2-billion ($3.3-million): 56% from Britain and Europe, 24% from North America, 14% from the Middle East and 6% from Asia-Pacific

Known for

Large-scale infrastructure projects – 86% of Atkins's revenue comes from infrastructure. Examples include the Dubai Metro, the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site in New York, the London Crossrail and the Burj Al Arab luxury hotel in Dubai.

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