 "Construction")
The company has received a little over Rs 8,900 crore worth of fresh orders during the first seven months of the current year, as against a targeted order inflow of Rs 12,000 crore for the whole year.
While the orders already bagged by the company during this seven-month period make up 75 per cent of the targeted orders owing to a spurt in the announcement of new projects in the infrastructure sector, including roads, the company is yet to translate this into revenue growth this financial year.
The company's top line in April-September, 2016 period stood at Rs 3,901 crore, a marginal decline compared to Rs 4,135 crore in the corresponding six-month period the previous year.
However, management recently said NCC would not only improve revenues over the previous year but would also hope to register a 10-12 per cent year-on-year growth over the next 3-5 years. The company also said it is likely to improve its gross profit margin to nine per cent at the end of this financial year as compared to the present 8.75 per cent.
"We believe that we are in a sweet spot to take advantage of unfolding opportunities, and that is going to be reflected in our numbers as we going forward. And now, by the end of the current year, on a stand-alone basis, we will be a Rs 9,000 crore company and on a consolidated basis, a Rs 10,000 crore-plus company. And with this base, we are confident we can grow at 10-12 per cent year-on-year for the next three to five years," Y D Murthy, executive vice president of NCC Limited, said in a recent investor call.
Being a frontline company, NCC will be fully capitalising on new business opportunities as it does not have any baggage of CDR or NPA to think about, Murthy said.
The company, which has a balance of orders worth about Rs 22,164 crore at the end of first half of the current financial year, received 40 per cent of its total orders from the buildings and roads segment followed by water and environment projects, which form 19 per cent or Rs 4,318 crore worth contracts of the total order book.
Interestingly the private sector represents only 10-15 per cent of the company's order book, as the majority contracts related to projects awarded by the Centre and the state governments.
As the company was in the process of monetising two of its road projects, it was also looking at bidding one or two new hybrid annuity road projects each worth of Rs 1,000 crore in the current year.
