The S&P BSE Sensex and the Nifty50 have hit record highs amid the poll outcome-triggered bull frenzy at the bourses. Most analysts feel that the indices are on course to rise further over the next few months - till the general elections - albeit amid intermittent corrections - largely triggered by global developments. Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) win in the three state elections of Madhya Pradesh (MP), Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, analysts at Jefferies believe, reinforces the consensus expectations of a Modi win 2024 national elections with a greater likelihood of over 300 seats for the BJP.
L&T was the top gainer in the Sensex pack followed by M&M, SBI, Titan, Infosys, Bharti Airtel and Ultratech Cement.
Severe skilled, unskilled shortage threatens to pull emergency brakes on India's industrial engine.
This includes distancing themselves from the new and emerging super-critical technology.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Wednesday said it has secured a large contract to construct the country's longest road bridge across river Brahmaputra connecting Dhubri in Assam to Phulbari in Meghalaya. The contract was bagged by the company's subsidiary L&T Construction. As per the company, a large contract is worth Rs 2,500-5,000 crore.
Operating margins have been the primary driver of corporate earnings in India in recent quarters, despite revenue growth suffering from weak consumer demand. Companies across sectors have reported a sharp improvement in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) margins over the past two years, benefiting from lower commodity and energy prices. Higher margins more than compensated for slower revenue growth, resulting in double-digit growth in net profit for five consecutive quarters.
The engineering and construction (E&C) sector delivered an excellent performance in the last two financial years (FY2021-22 or FY22 and FY23's nine-months) and there's reason to believe that FY24 will also see outperformance. The sector has emerged from the pandemic with stronger balance sheets and more rational cost structures. It has a big order book and it should see new order flows accelerate in FY24.
India Inc could be embarking upon a new phase of capital expenditure (capex) cycle, observed analysts, and suggest its revival would lead to a rerating of industrial stocks. Assisted by a property upcycle, analysts at Jefferies said several government initiatives were likely to drive capex. Indicators, they said, include a private project announcement at Rs 25 trillion for 2022-23 (up 150 per cent from pre-pandemic levels) and credit growth at about 16 per cent, which is closer to pre-pandemic highs.
'The fact still remains that we will have to deliver, so the pressure is now on us to make sure we get our resources, our supplies lined up at acceptable costs.'
The deal size and project completion deadline were not disclosed in the announcement, but people in the know have pegged the deal at over Rs 6,000 crore, reports Aneesh Phadnis.
After a turnaround in performance by Indian equity markets since July that has seen the S&P BSE Sensex and the Nifty50 wipe out the year-to-date losses, analysts suggest investors start nibbling into stocks that are focused on the domestic economy. While they say intermittent corrections, led by policies of global central banks and other economic data, cannot be ruled out, analysts expect India's relative outperformance among global equity markets to continue as it looks better placed with a healthy economic recovery, and remains one of the fastest growing major economies. In this backdrop, Neeraj Chadawar, head of quantitative equity strategy at Axis Securities, believes that amid global slowdown, aggressive tightening by the central banks, and preference for domestic interests first (by the local government), export-oriented themes are likely to be muted or will deliver conservative returns in the near-term.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) disappointed the Street with its results for the January-March quarter of the 2022-23 financial year (Q4FY23) due to weaker core engineering & construction (E&C) segment performance by the engineering giant.' Although core E&C order inflows for FY23 rose 19 per cent year-on-year (YoY), with orders from railways, metals and water sectors, margins in the infrastructure segment crashed to all-time low. Revenue at Rs 58,300 crore was up 10 per cent YoY but somewhat below expectations.
'Policy-sensitive sectors will wait and watch, but policy-agnostic areas will continue based on normal consumption demand.'
Engineering giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is looking to divest its exposure to road and power concessions and incubate digital and e-commerce businesses as part of its new five-year plan ending 2025-26 (FY26). The base year for the plan is 2020-21 (FY21). The blueprint, called Lakshya 2026, is intended to help the company exit sub-scale businesses, concentrate on high-technology (tech) manufacturing, construction and green energy projects, and increase its share from information technology (IT) and digital services. The lending operations of the financial services business, meanwhile, will be reorganised, with focus on retail lending.
Engineering giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T) handed out a pay cheque of Rs 61.27 crore to its chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) SN Subrahmanyan in the last financial year (FY22), which is a near 115 per cent hike over FY21, as executive compensation at India Inc comes under sharp focus after two years of Covid-19. In fact, the total compensation of L&T's executive directors (including Subrahmanyan) in FY22 was 120 to 670 times the median remuneration of the company's employees, data from its FY22 annual report shows. This points to sharp hikes that the top management saw in their remuneration during the period, experts in human resources said. In FY21, L&T's executive compensation was 56 to 337 times the median remuneration of company employees.
The first consortium includes Afcons Infrastructure, IRCON International and JMC Projects, while the second group of companies include NCC, Tata Projects and J. Kumar Infra Projects.
Around 75 per cent, or 372 stocks, that are part of the BSE500 are trading at least 10 per cent below their all-time high levels, despite the index hitting a record high 20,515 points on the BSE in intra-day trade on Wednesday, surpassing its previous high of 20,390 touched in March 12. The index, which accounts for 93 per cent of BSE listed companies' market capitalisation, has gained 8 per cent from its recent low of 18,983, touched on April 19. In comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex gained 6 per cent over the same period, but is still nearly 4.5 per cent away from its all-time high of 52,517 that it hit on February 16.
L&T, Ircon International and Tata Projects have showed interest in a tender issued by the National High Speed Rail Corporation, implementing agency for the project. The tender is for construction of stations, bridges, viaducts, maintenance depots and tunnels.
L&T is pursuing a controlling stake of 66 per cent in the mid-tier IT firm, for Rs 10,700 crore.
The layoffs have been done in businesses which are moving slowly due to various reasons including delayed execution
As Unilever's COO, he is expected to take significant load off CEO Alan Jope, pushing growth across markets and driving go-to-market activities.
The airport, which will now be built to handle 20 million passengers, will likely start operations by mid-2020. However, rating agency CRISIL in its report in May-end had said operations are expected to start in 2023.
The ministry of defence has set a goal of $26 billion, including export of $7 billion for the industry by 2025-26 through its Defence Production Policy 2018.
Honed and utilised in-house for over three years, the engineering major's new arm - L&T-Nxt - will focus on AI, IoT, vitual reality and cyber security among other fields of digitisation.
Fund managers say the recent fall is not going to sustain.
DRDO is offering a 30-35-tonne light tank that it says will be a match for what the army faces -- China's new Type-15 light tank.
Deutsche Bank says rising debtor days and low customer advances imply significant net working capital requirement.
ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Infosys, SBI and L&T among fund managers' preferred bets.
L&T had also sought shareholders' approval to raise $600 million through a qualified institutional placement.
HDFC Equity, the largest equity fund, also managed by Prashant Jain, with a corpus of Rs 10,445 crore, has 9.4 per cent of its assets in SBI.
To sell off L&T IDPL, Nabha Power; transfer Hyderabad Metro to an InvIT.
Bhogapuram international airport, Ramayapatnam and Bandar ports, the Muktyala lift irrigation scheme and a bridge across the Krishna river are some of the projects likely to be hit.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T), India's largest construction and engineering player, has lost as many as 14 large orders in the country because companies that don't possess adequate technical expertise and experience, of late, have won the projects by bidding lower, claimed A M Naik, non-executive chairman of L&T. But the company has made up for the losses by winning projects overseas, where it has acquired a sizeable market share amid tough competition from large global players, he said.
Tie-up with MBDA will have Indian partner as majority shareholder; first product likely in 2 years.
Seven students were made international offers.
The 'request for proposal' for the indigenous construction of the six submarines will be issued soon, they added.
Benchmark indices plunge 4.7% in the first full week of 2016.
The previous highest divestment proceeds for the first half of a year was around Rs 21,000 crore in 2016-17.
Covering-up of pending short positions on expiry of the July derivatives contracts and a strengthening rupee propped up the markets at high levels