L&T wins 5 orders worth Rs 5000 cr 4 days in row

Larsen and Toubro Ltd has been awarded five contracts in the last four days aggregating Rs 5,177 crore. Of this, two contracts worth Rs 2,487 crore were awarded on Thursday. These contracts are mostly from government entities such as Nuclear Power Corporation, Power Grid Corporation, Rail Vikas Nigam and MRPL. Tata Steel, a private player, has also placed an order worth Rs 1,143 crore. L&T’s stock was up by over 7% intraday on Thursday. It has gained more than 20% in last one month. If the trend of more government contracts in future continues, the company will be able to keep its growth intact since as private sector is badly hit by the economic slowdown. Private sector had contributed more than 50% of the company’s total order backlog as on December 2008. As at December 2008, the company’s order backlog and order intake stood at Rs 68,800 crore and Rs 39,100 crore, respectively. However, the growth of 39% and 30% in order backlog and order inflows respectively came down from over 40% each in the September 2008 quarter and came to the same levels as on December 2007. Though the size of executed orders is not available, the sum of the order backlog as on December 2008 and fresh orders worth Rs 10,000 crore thereafter takes the total orders worth Rs 78,800 crore in FY09.