Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has rallied over 5% to Rs 1,198, bouncing back 8% from day’s low on reporting a better-than-expected a 14% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in net profit at Rs 1,877 crore for the quarter ended March 2012. Analysts on average had expected net profit at Rs 1,673 crore.
The engineering and construction major earned exceptional items of Rs 227 crore included sale of investment in an associate company and partial sale of a strategic investment.
Total gross revenue grew 21% at Rs 18,646 crore on y-o-y basis. The company has an order book position of Rs 145,723 crore as on March 31, 2012.
However, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) margins declined at 13.65% in the January-March quarter of 2012 as against 15.22% in the corresponding quarter of last fiscal.
“Gradual upswing in Indian economy is expected in the year 2012-13 with increasing government focus on certain sectors such as infrastructure, power, oil and gas and fertilizers which are of key importance to the company,” L&T said in a filing to the stock exchanges.
Meanwhile, the board has recommended a dividend of Rs 16.50/- per share for the financial year 2011-12.
As many as a combined 6.41 million shares have already changed hands on the counters, against an average sub 2 million shares that were traded daily in past two weeks on both the exchanges.