Larsen & Toubro Infotech surges 6% on healthy September quarter results

The board declared first interim dividend for the financial year 2020-21 of Rs 15 per share of face value of Re 1 each

Shares of Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI) were up 6 per cent to Rs 3,139 on the BSE in the intra-day trade on Wednesday after the company reported strong revenue growth numbers and healthy margin expansion in July-September quarter (Q2FY21). Besides, the board also declared first interim dividend for the financial year 2020-21 of Rs 15 per share of face value of Re 1 each. The company has already fixed October 28, 2020 as record date for the same.

In Q2FY21, LTI's constant currency dollar revenues increased 2.3 per cent quarter on quarter (QoQ), higher than analyst estimate of 1.1 per cent to 1.5 per cent. In rupee terms, revenue grew 1.7 per cent sequentially at Rs 2,998 crore, while net profit rose 9.7 per at Rs 457 crore on QoQ basis. Better pricing, utilization, and off-shore mix drove robust improvement of 250 basis points (bp) QoQ / 440bp YoY in the EBIT (earnings before interest tax) margin to 19.9 per cent.

The company also won large deal with net new TCV in excess of US$40 million in analytics. The company's large deal pipeline remains strong. LTI is seeing increased traction in digital, cloud and analytics space.

"LTI's Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) margins increased 279 bps QoQ to 22.9 per cent, above our estimate of 20.5 per cent, mainly led by higher offshoring and increase in utilization," ICICI Securities said in a note. The brokerage firm expects this improving trajectory to continue in coming quarters led by healthy deal pipeline and its digital prowess.

At 12:06 pm, LTI was trading 5 per cent higher at Rs 3,106 on the BSE, as compared to 0.95 per cent gain in the S&P BSE Sensex. A combined around 600,000 equity shares had changed hands on the counter on the NSE and BSE till the time of writing of this report. It hit a 52-week high of Rs 3,515 on October 12, 2020.