29 May, 2017
The company missed the guidance despite lowering it during the course of the year as new orders from the government, particularly from the defence sector, continued to get deferred and execution of existing orders was slowed due to a severe cash crunch, particularly in the real estate sector. 34% of the total revenue was captured by global business where gross revenue stood at Rs 37,653 crore.
"Economic recovery in the country is expected to steadily improve in the current year backed by structural reforms and overcoming the short term effects of demonetization that happened last year", the company said. L&T has given a growth guidance of 12-14 per cent for order inflows and 12 per cent for revenue growth for 2017-18, which hinges primarily on government spending. Worldwide contracts continued to account for nearly a third of the total orders.
L&T is expected to grow its revenue for FY18 at about 12 percent (+/- 1 percent) and order inflow growth is seen at 12-15 percent, R Shankar Raman, Chief Financial Officer said.
Order wins in Infrastructure segment, Hydrocarbon and Heavy Engineering segments contributed to the orderflow during the year. "If we were earlier requesting more time for execution, now we are after them (those who placed the orders) to "take" the finished project", said Naik, noting that L&T finished construction of interceptor boats for Coast Guard two years ahead of schedule, but they are accepting the ships only in a phased manner. "But government has commitment to social costs as it is constantly anxious about elections and how to get votes; so where is the money for infrastructure", Naik said.
Fourth-quarter profit was 31.80 billion rupees ($493.00 million), compared with a profit of 24.82 billion rupees a year earlier, while total income from operations rose 12 percent to 368.28 billion rupees.
During 2016-17, the company recorded a 43% jump in net profit at Rs 6,041 crore.
Consolidated Order Book of the group stood at a robust level of Rs 261,341 crore as at March 31, 2017, higher by 5 per cent on a y-o-y basis. The engineering major managed to marginally beat Street estimates on both parameters.
In its meeting held on Monday, L&T's board of directors have recommended the issue of bonus equity shares in the ratio of 1:2.
Shares of L&T gained 0.04% in Mumbai trading, while the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex closed 0.26% higher.
