L&T Q4 profit up 17.25% at Rs 1,686.21 crore

Infrastructure major Larsen and Toubro (L&T) on Thursday reported a 17.25 per cent growth in standalone net profit to Rs 1,686.21 crore for the quarter ended March 31.

However, the net profit could have been flat had there not been an exceptional gain of Rs 226.77 crore achieved out of the sale of its investment in an associate company.

L&T had reported a net profit of Rs 1,438.10 crore for the corresponding quarter of 2009-10, the company said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

During the quarter, net sales of the company stood at Rs 15,078.39 crore, a growth of 12.73 per cent compared to Rs 13,374.89 crore in the January-March quarter of 2009-10, the filing added.

The company's gross revenues from the engineering and construction segment grew 12.85 per cent to Rs 13,664.31 crore during the fourth quarter, while its electrical and electronics segment reported a meagre growth of 1.32 per cent to Rs 1,001.39 crore.

However, for the full year 2010-11, the standalone net profit of the company fell 9.54 per cent to Rs 3,957.89 crore due to an 18.58 per cent increase in its tax outgo to Rs 1,945.86 crore. In 2009-10, the company had posted a standalone net profit of Rs 4,375.52 crore.

On a consolidated basis, the net profit of the company went down 18.24 per cent to Rs 4,456.17 crore in 2010-11 from Rs 5,450.74 crore in 2009-10.

In a separate statement, the company said its order book amounted to Rs 1,30,217 crore as of March 31, due to an increase of about 27 per cent in order inflow during the January-March quarter.

Giving its outlook for the current year, the company said that completion of several expansion projects is underway and it will strengthen the company's position of preeminence in various business verticals.

However, it added that "intense competition and spiralling input costs may exert some pressure on the operating margin going forward."