Larsen & Toubro Q3 net profit up 3% to Rs 2,648 crore

Engineering and construction giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Monday posted a 3 per cent increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 2,648.33 crore for the quarter ended in December 2020.

The company had clocked a net profit after tax and share in profit/(loss) of joint ventures/associates from continuing operations before exceptional items of Rs 2,560.32 crore in the year-ago period, it said in a regulatory filing.

The increase in profit is largely attributed to higher profit from IT & ITES segment and sale of commercial property in Realty, the company said in a statement. PAT also includes gain on divestment of Rs 209 crore from discontinued operations for the quarter ended December 31, 2020.

"The gain of divestment is ...accrued against the sale of the Electrical & Automation business to Schneider Electric SE and ... sale of the UK based Marine control & automation systems subsidiary to Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG," the company said.

Total consolidated income was almost flat at Rs 36,661.08 crore in the October-December quarter, against Rs 36,711.69 crore in the year-ago period. Total expenses slipped to Rs 32,980.58 crore from Rs 33,488.46 crore in the corresponding quarter earlier.

"During the quarter the Company was awarded the biggest EPC contract in the country and first of its kind -- the prestigious High Speed Rail order. With this, the Group order inflow for the quarter ended December 31, 2020, registered a strong growth of 76% over the corresponding quarter of the previous year and stood at Rs 73,233 crore," the company said.

International orders during the quarter constituted 14% of the total order inflow. On a cumulative basis, the order inflow for the nine months period ended December 31, 2020, stood at Rs 124,846 crore.

The consolidated order book of the Group stood at a record Rs 331,061 crore as at December 31, 2020, registering a robust growth of 9% over the March’20 level, the company said.

"The Gross Revenues of Rs 35,596 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2020, registered a sequential growth of 15 per cent. The Covid-19 restrictions continued to have an impact on project site execution and Hyderabad metro operations that led to a marginal decline in revenue of 2% over the corresponding quarter of the previous year," the company said.