On the back of robust order inflows and a pick-up in execution momentum in project businesses, Larsen and Toubro (L&T) on Wednesday beat analyst expectations on revenues and operating profit for the three months ended June 30, 2018, while the net profit came in line with the analyst estimates.
The heavy engineering and infrastructure major reported a smart 36% year-on-year (y-o-y) jump in the consolidated net profit to `1,215 crore, while the net sales for the quarter ended June surged a good 18% y-o-y to Rs 28,300 crore.
Speaking to newspersons, R Shankar Raman, chief financial officer, L&T said, “The strength of the performance is borne out by the fact that across various parameters the company has done very well and exceeded the previous year’s first quarter numbers considerably”.
The government’s push to infrastructure development led to a strong tendering environment during the quarter, as a result, the company’s fresh order intake was up a sharp 37% y-o-y to `36,142 crore. Domestic order intake formed nearly 74% of the order inflows, while international orders made up for 26% of this order intake.
“Much of this activity is triggered by government programmes on developing the country’s infrastructure and hence combination of government programmes sponsored by either the PSU cash flows or the multilateral finding agencies supporting the programme is driving the momentum,” Raman added.
Another significant development during the quarter was that after a few quarters of slowdown in the international orders, given the uncertainty around the geopolitical environment, oil prices etc, Raman said the company has found that the overseas opportunities are beginning to improve as compared to the softness seen exactly a year before.
The order book as on June 30, 2018 stood at Rs 2.72 lakh crore, up 3.4% on a y-o-y basis, which he said is fine considering the fact that the momentum for picking up orders and executing underlies the movement of these numbers.
The private sector investments in sectors that L&T is involved with continue to be slow. “Private sector investments in some pockets — where a lot of consumption is seen like automobile or construction, mining equipment etc is happening, but in the metals space with which the company is intimately connected much of the investment currently happening are to pick up the stressed assets available,” Raman said. He added that the private sector by and large is on the wait and watch mode and would possibly make the move once the environment is conclusively favouring economic activity for their respective businesses.
However, despite the sluggish private sector environment and the current financial year also being an election year, Raman said the company sees the ordering environment to be robust in the domestic market, consequent to which the company has kept its guidance unchanged that it shared in the previous quarter. For financial year 2018-2019, L&T has guided a growth of 10-12% in the order inflows over FY18, while the company expects the revenues to increase by 12-15%. The company expects the Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) margins to remain stable with an upward bias of 25 basis points over the full year ended March 31, 2018.
The Ebitda for the first quarter ended June 30, 2018 was up 40% y-o-y to rs 2,900 crore, while the Ebitda margins were up a good 160 basis points, again above analyst estimates.
In terms of the opportunities that the company sees in the sector, SN Subrahmanyan, CEO & managing director, L&T said, “We have prudently over the last decade or so built some strategic assets to make the country relatively self-reliant. If you take a ship now maybe 60% of the weapons system in the ship including radars etc are made by L&T. This is an area we have bet for the future.”
The order book of the segment stood at `11,599 crore as on June 30, 2018.
