Larsen & Toubro’s consolidated net profit for the June quarter rose 46 per cent year-on-year to ₹2,493 crore, while revenue rose 34 per cent to ₹47,882 crore, aided by the execution of a healthy opening order book in its projects and manufacturing portfolio. Both profit and revenue were above analyst estimates.
“The Q1FY24 performance is on the back of robust top line and bottom-line growth, supported by excellent balance sheet management, resulting in improved return ratios,” said MD, CEO SN Subrahmanyan.
He added that capex buoyancy in India and the GCC area was providing the tailwinds for growing the projects and manufacturing portfolio.
On a standalone level, which excludes the IT services and financial services subsidiaries, the company reported a net profit of ₹1,792 crore on revenue of ₹26,930.5 crore.
Order inflow
The company received orders worth ₹65,520 crore at the group level during the quarter ended June 30, 2023, registering an annual growth of 57 per cent. Orders were received across all its segments like rail, renewables, rural water supply, transmission, and distribution.
International orders at ₹27,646 crore during the quarter comprised 42 per cent of the total order inflow.
In a media briefing to discuss the results, Group CFO R Shankar Raman said that the company has an order pipeline visibility of over ₹10 lakh crore for the remaining quarters of FY24.
More than half of these would be in the infrastructure segment, slightly under a third from the hydrocarbon segment and the remaining from other segments. The company is targeting revenue share of 40 per cent from the green business by FY26 from 37 per cent now.
He added that the project execution momentum was likely to sustain right till the elections.
The consolidated order book of the group was at ₹4.1 lakh crore at the end of the quarter with international orders having a share of 29 per cent.
Infra segment
The core infrastructure projects segment of the company doubled its order inflows year-on-year to ₹40,051 crore, with 35 per cent coming from overseas. The segment order book stood at ₹3 lakh crore as on June 30 with the share of international orders at a fourth. The segment’s EBITDA margin fell to 5.1 per cent from 6.5 per cent in the year-ago period due to legacy projects and uneven bunching of projects.
On a consolidated basis the company reported an EBITDA margin of 10.2 per cent in the reporting quarter, down from 11 per cent year ago.
The energy projects vertical with revenue of ₹6,690 crore also saw order inflows rising exponentially to ₹7,245 crore while EBITDA margin improved to 9.1 per cent from 8.5 per cent year ago.
The board also approved a special dividend of ₹6 per share.