L&T slips on buzz it may write off slow-moving orders

L&T fell 1.60% to Rs 1,279.15 on a media report that the company is likely to trim its Rs 1.7-lakh crore order book by about 10%

L&T fell 1.60% to Rs 1,279.15 at 11:54 IST on BSE on a media report that the company is likely to trim its Rs 1.7-lakh crore order book by about 10%.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 108.99 points, or 0.48%, to 22,442.50.

On BSE, so far 93,000 shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 2.22 lakh shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 1,298.80 and a low of Rs 1,255 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 1,310 on 2 April 2014. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 678.10 on 28 August 2013.

The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 2 April 2014, rising 17.29% compared with the Sensex's 6.78% rise. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 25.43% as against Sensex's 7.96% rise.

The large-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 185.38 crore. Face value per share is Rs 2.

According to the report, L&T is likely to trim its Rs 1.7-lakh crore order book by about 10% when it announces earnings for the year ended March 2014 (FY2014) as lack of approvals, aggressive bidding and other problems have frozen project execution by its customers, mainly in the roads, minerals and metals sectors.

The report suggested that orders worth Rs 9000 crore may be written off in the construction business alone, and it may consider eliminating jobs worth a total Rs 10000-15000 crore inclusive of this.

Several companies in the infrastructure sector are stranded with projects that have turned unviable due to long delays in securing clearances, regulatory hurdles, policy uncertainty and at times predatory bidding by some companies. This has cast a shadow on projects in several sectors, including power, coal, highways, mining and metals. In many cases, project execution has not begun or stopped midway while some projects are mired in disputes. This has affected companies such as L&T, which had earlier scaled down its targets due to the slowdown in the infrastructure sector, the report added.

L&T's net profit rose 10.6% to Rs 1240.70 crore on 11.8% growth in net sales to Rs 14387.51 crore in Q3 December 2013 over Q3 December 2012.

L&T is a $14 billion technology, engineering, construction, manufacturing and financial services conglomerate, with global operations.