Engineering and construction company Larsen and Toubro (L&T) posted a 69 per cent rise in standalone net profit for the quarter ended March 31 at ₹2,723 crore, compared with ₹1,610 crore a year ago, primarily driven by efficient order execution and contract management.

Net sales were up 11 per cent at ₹20,079 crore against ₹18,075 crore in the year-earlier quarter.

EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) margins improved from 11.8 per cent to 14.4 per cent for the quarter and from 10.6 per cent to 11.8 per cent on a year-on-year basis.

Annual numbers However, on a consolidated basis, the company’s annual net profit dipped six per cent to ₹4,902 crore from ₹5,206 crore.

This was due to investments in development projects, shipbuilding and special steel forgings, which were yet to scale up, said R Shankar Raman, Chief Financial Officer.

Net sales of ₹56,599 crore for the year ended March 31 registered a growth of 10 per cent over the previous year. International revenue during the year at ₹9,129 crore constituted 16 per cent of the total revenue and logged a 22 per cent growth.

L&T secured new orders worth ₹94,108 crore in FY14, which was 15 per cent higher than the pervious year. International order inflow for the year at ₹30,752 crore grew more than three times on a year-on-year basis, constituting 33 per cent of the total order inflow. Major orders during year were in the infrastructure segment.

L&T’s order book was at ₹1,62,952 crore as of March 31, up 13 per cent from last year. International orders made up 21 per cent of it.

Raman said the company had deleted slow moving and doubtful orders of about ₹15,000 crore from the order book. AM Naik, Group Executive Chairman, said good days are ahead with likely reforms in many sectors and one could expect the Government to kick-start its tendering process in September.

On foreign direct investment in defence, he said hiking it from 26 per cent to 49 per cent would attract little objections, but above 49 per cent is debatable. What is more crucial is to ensure the pre-conditions for technology transfers are in place. Naik added public- private-partnership projects are an imperative to ensure that developers are assured of incentives and guaranteed returns. If this were done, international players will come in. Referring to engineering, procurement and construction contracts, he said funding would be constraint given the fiscal deficit.

Public issue The company is in the process of initiating the initial public offering of L&T Infotech and L&T Technology Services separately by July 2016.

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