L&T Q4 net falls 6.9 percent, lags forecast

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Larsen and Toubro Ltd (L&T) posted a worse-than-expected 6.9 percent fall in quarterly profit as interest costs jumped for India's biggest engineering and construction company.

Net profit fell to 17.88 billion rupees for its fiscal fourth quarter ending March, from 19.2 billion rupees it reported a year earlier, said the company, whose interests span shipbuilding to railways to real estate.

Analysts expected the company to report a net profit of 18.56 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Shares in the company, valued at more than $18 billion, fell 3 percent after results.

(Reporting by Matthias Williams; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)