SINGAPORE - Mainboard heavyweight Singapore Technologies Engineering posted on Wednesday a 5 per cent decline in net profit to $130 million for the first quarter ended March 31, 2015, compared to $137.2 million in the year-ago period, due mainly to difficulties faced by its US shipbuilding operations.

The group's revenue dipped 3 per cent to $1.51 billion from $1.55 billion in the year-ago period. It said commercial business accounted for 63 per cent or $950 million of its revenue for the quarter.

For the first half of 2015, the group expects revenues to be comparable and profit before tax to be lower. It ended the first quarter with an order book of $12.2 billion, of which it expects to deliver $3 billion of orders in the remaining months of 2015.

Earnings per share for the quarter were 4.17 cents while net asset value per share was 47.36 cents.

No dividend was declared for the quarter.