Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Larsen & Toubro Limited Q2 FY 2022 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. P. Ramakrishnan, Head, Investor Relations, Larsen & Toubro Limited. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Faizan. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. A very warm welcome to all of you to the Q2 FY 2022 earnings call of L&T. The analyst presentation was uploaded on the stock exchange and our website an hour back. I hope you would have had a chance to take a quick look at the numbers. As usual, instead of going through the slide-wise the entire presentation, I'll try to summarize the key highlights for the quarter, followed by our commentary on segmental outlook, which I believe will take the next 20 or 25 minutes. Post that, we will get into Q&A. Before I begin the overview, a brief disclaimer.
The presentation which we have uploaded on the stock exchange and our, in our website today, contains or may contain certain forward-looking statements concerning L&T's business prospects and profitability, which are subject to several risks and uncertainties, and the actual results could materially differ from those in such forward-looking statements or statements made during this call. Q2 FY 2022 can best be described as a comeback quarter for India. Not only did the COVID second wave in India abate faster than expected, but from the various published high frequency economic indicators, it does appear that the dent created to growth by the second wave was shallower than the first. Green shoots were visible in various industry services, investment and mobility indicators towards the latter half of Q2. In a way, the widening trade deficit in September 2021 is also an indicator for a more normalized India.
The higher tax collections witnessed in Q2 also reinforces our growth process, thought process. On the flip side, the supply side inflation challenges continues to remain a source of worry. India completed more than 1 billion vaccinations, and as we speak, the daily infections, COVID infections are already at an eight-month low. Going forward, a combination of pent-up plus festival demand should augur well for India's recovery in Q3 FY 2022 and beyond. Coming to our L&T Group performance, Q2 FY 2022 was about striking a balance between profitable growth and capital employed. Let me assure you that the return ratios at a group level are being pursued rigorously irrespective of the macroeconomic volatility. I will now cover the key financial indicators for Q2 FY 2022.
Our order inflows for Q2 FY 2022 at INR 421 billion registered a growth of 50% over the corresponding quarter of the previous year. In the projects and manufacturing business, our order inflows for Q2 FY 2022 at INR 301 billion registered a growth of 73% over Q2 FY 2021. The order inflows in this projects and manufacturing business are fairly spread out across all the segments that comprises the P&M business, namely Hydrocarbon, Infrastructure, Heavy Engineering, Realty, and the Industrial Machinery and Equipment businesses. Having said that, let me mention here that in Q2 FY 2022, we did witness some delays in domestic awards finalization despite a robust pickup in tendering activity.
Just to elaborate on that point further, whereas macro-level domestic projects announced and tendering activity in Q2 FY 2022 was up by 19% over Q2 FY 2021, project award dropped 22% over the comparable quarter of the previous year. Moving on to our prospects pipeline in the projects and manufacturing business for H2 FY 2022, our total prospects pipeline stands at INR 6.83 trillion as against a total prospect pipeline of INR 6.13 trillion that existed as of September 2020. This reflects an overall increase of around 12%. This overall prospect pipeline comprises of domestic prospects of INR 4.66 trillion and international prospects of INR 2.16 trillion. I am sure you would recall that our total prospect pipeline at the end of Q1 FY 2022 was around 8.96 trillion.
With the COVID second wave behind us and a remote risk of a third wave, we do expect a very busy H2 in terms of tendering and awards finalization. Now moving on to order book. Our order book as on September 30, 2021 is at a record high, a near record high of INR 3.31 trillion. A large and diversified order book gives us multi-year revenue visibility. As our projects and manufacturing business is largely India-centric, 77% of this order book of INR 3.31 trillion is domestic and the rest 23% international. Around 89% of our total order book comprises of Infrastructure at 74% and Hydrocarbon at 15%.
Within Infrastructure, our order book is well diversified across the various business segments, like heavy civil, water, power transmission and distribution, buildings and factories, transportation infra, and the metallurgical and material handling businesses. Further breakdown of the domestic order book is as follows: central government 10%, state government 33%, public sector units of state-owned enterprises at 42%, and the remaining private sector at 15%. Again, around 31% of the total order book is funded through bilateral or multilateral institutions. Coming to revenues. Our group revenues for the quarter Q2 FY 2022 was INR 348 billion, registering a growth of 12% over Q2 FY 2021. International revenues constituted 35% of the revenues during the quarter. The IT and technology services portfolio did report industry-leading growth in Q2.
In the products and manufacturing business, our revenues for Q2 FY 2022 were INR 228 billion, registering a growth of 12% over Q2 FY 2021. The executions in the products and manufacturing business was calibrated in line with the cash flows that we realized during the quarter. Going forward, as cash flows improve in the second half, and if there are no major risks emanating from a possible COVID third wave, we should witness improved execution levels, just like any normalized second half of the year. Moving on to EBITDA margin. Our group level EBITDA margin for Q2 FY 2022 at 11.5% vis-a-vis 10.7% in Q2 FY 2021 reflects an improvement of 80 basis points, largely on account of improved overhead recovery despite cost headwinds.
It is important to note here that even on a sequential basis, our group level EBITDA margin has improved 70 basis points. Kindly refer to the detailed breakup of the EBITDA margin business-wise, which is given in the annexures to the analyst presentation. Coming to projects and manufacturing business portfolio. Our Q2 FY 2022 EBITDA margin is at 9.2% vis-a-vis 8.1% in the quarter of the second quarter of the previous year, again, registering an improvement of 110 basis points. Even sequentially, there is an improvement of 30 basis points. As guided at the beginning of the year, we will maintain our projects and manufacturing business EBITDA margin at the same level as last year, that is the full year FY 2021, which was around 10.3%.
We have multiple levers in the businesses to offset the cost headwinds being experienced in the current year. I'll briefly explain that later. Our current composition of variable price contracts in the order book, it should be around 60%-65%. That is one fact that gives, you know, as far as cost increases go, and we do have a sort of a compensatory impact. Secondly, there are jobs that are expected to cross the threshold margin level in the current year. Thirdly, there will be cost contingency releases for the jobs nearing completion. On top of them, we have overhead optimization initiatives, enhanced production productivity through digitization, value engineering and waste control activities, negotiation with vendors and discussions with clients on use of alternate variants of inputs should see us through in terms of managing the cost pressures experienced in the current year.
Moving on to PAT. Our operational PAT for Q2 FY 2022 at INR 17.2 billion is up by 56% over Q2 of FY 2021. The improved EBITDA, due to better overhead recoveries, as well as reduced finance costs due to lower borrowing at a parent level, contributes to this PAT improvement. Our reported PAT at INR 18.2 billion for Q2 FY 2022 has registered a decline of 67% over Q2 FY 2021, mainly due to the two one-off items, one being the gain on the divestment of the electrical and automation business, and two exceptional items that we took with respect to impairments of our exposure in the forgings and the Power Development business portfolio.
The group performance P&L construct, along with reasons for major variances under the respective function heads, is provided in the analyst presentation. The only place I would like to draw your attention is to the exceptionals reported for the current quarter, Q2 FY 2022. The INR 1 billion exceptional net of tax for Q2 represents the gain on divestment of stake in our Uttarakhand Hydropower plant, which is at INR 1.44 billion, and at a group level, a tax outflow on transfer of the NxT Digital business that happened on July 1 from L&T to Mindtree at INR 0.47 billion as an outflow. Coming to working capital, our group net working capital to sales ratio has improved from 26.7% in September 2020 to 22% in September 2021. One of the reasons for this ratio moving lower is due to the denominator moving higher.
Secondly, as I mentioned earlier, we have tried to maintain a healthy balance between execution and working capital management during Q2. You would have noticed that the NWC to sales ratio has also improved from the March 2021 levels, where we had reported 22.3. Customer collections have been good during the quarter. Our group level collections, that excludes the financial services portfolio, for Q2 FY 2022 were at INR 322 billion vis-a-vis INR 296 billion in Q2 FY 2021. If you glance through the cash flow statement given as part of the annexure to the analyst presentation, you will notice that the net cash from operations in Q2 FY 2022 was at INR 40.4 billion, showing vis-a-vis INR 27.3 billion in Q2 FY 2021, registering a smart growth of almost 48%.
The CapEx for Q2 FY 2022 was at INR 5.7 billion, vis-a-vis INR 3.6 billion in Q2 FY 2021. As we look at, we are off to a good start in the first six months. Now, hopefully, we should consolidate and sustain this momentum. Finally, as we had mentioned at the beginning of this year, our endeavor is to maintain our group level net working capital to sales ratio in March 2022 in and around the same levels that we reported for March 2021, which was around 22.3%. Moving to balance sheet. If you glance through the balance sheet given in the annexure to the analyst presentation, you will notice that our group level gross as well as net debt ratios have improved vis-a-vis the March 2021 numbers.
This is primarily due to repayment of liabilities in our financial services business around INR 37 billion, Power Development business around INR 21 billion, and as well as at the L&T parent level, around INR 17 billion. Finally, our trailing twelve-month ROE as on September 2021 is at 11.8% vis-a-vis 16.8% printed for September 2020. As you are aware, the ROE in September 2021 includes the benefit of a one-time gain on the sale of automation business. The ROE in September, I'm referring to ROE in the previous year, includes the benefit of a one-time gain on the sale of electrical automation business, net of the exceptional write-offs that we took in Q2 of the previous year.
Further, you would also recollect that as on March 2021, our ROE on the continuing operations is at 10.1. We are improving progressively, and as I said earlier, return ratios going forward will be pursued rigorously. A robust business portfolio, focus on cash generation distribution, eye on capital deployed, and divestment of the non-core concession assets should hopefully lead to an improvement in ROEs in the near future. Very briefly, I will now comment on the performance of each of the business segments before we move on to the final comments on the environment and outlook. Coming to Infrastructure, order inflows in Q2 are fairly spread out across the various sub-segments. Having said that, let me mention that Q2 was a quarter of robust new project announcements at a macro level. Even tendering activity happened at a brisk pace.
However, we did witness delays in the awards finalization. Our order prospects pipeline in this segment for H2 for the current year remains healthy at INR 5.29 trillion vis-a-vis INR 4.40 trillion same time last year, reflecting an increase of 20%. Of this INR 5.29 trillion of prospects, domestic prospects are at INR 4 trillion and international at INR 1.07 trillion. The prospects are well spread across various areas like buildings and factories, hydro projects and tunnel projects, ports and harbors, metros, nuclear power construction, roads, railways, water, power transmission and distribution, and metallurgical and material handling. The order book in this segment is at INR 2.43 trillion as at September 2021. The average execution cycle of this order book is around 27-28 months.
The book-to-bill ratio is close to around three years. The Q2 revenues at INR 139.2 billion registered a growth of 7% over the comparable quarter of the previous year. We followed a calibrated execution approach in this segment in line with the cash flows during the quarter. To some extent, we suffered on the execution front due to supply chain bottlenecks overseas, largely due to COVID reasons, and also intermittent and incessant rains, and finally, Cyclone Tauktae, which impacted project execution progress in Maharashtra and Gujarat sites. Our EBITDA margin in this segment improved from 6.4% in Q2 FY 2021 to 8.3% in Q2 FY 2022 due to a better job mix and improved overhead recovery despite commodity prices headwind experienced during the quarter.
Even on a sequential basis, that is from Q1 FY 2022 to Q2 FY 2022, the margin has improved by 120 basis points. That is from 7.1% to 8.3%. Now moving to the Power segment, the subdued ordering environment continues. Having said that, let me mention here that we have a fairly good order prospect pipeline of INR 160 billion for H2, comprising a couple of domestic and international opportunities. The revenues for Q2 FY 2022 for this Power segment at INR 11.1 billion was up by 62% over Q2 of FY 2021. The large opening order book drives healthy execution for the quarter. The reported margin for this segment for Q2 FY 2022 is at 2.7% reflective of job mix and stage of execution.
As you may be aware that the profits of boiler, turbine and other JV companies, in all aggregate to INR 0.43 billion for Q2 FY 2022, is consolidated at a PAT level under the equity method. We come to the Heavy Engineering segment. In Q2 FY 2022, this segment had multiple order wins in the refinery, oil and gas vertical. Revenue for Q2 FY 2022 is at INR 6.2 billion, up by 4% over Q2 of FY 2021. The job-specific challenges and slower execution impacted revenue in Q2. The Q2 FY 2022 margin was at 15.7% vis-a-vis 5.1% for Q2 FY 2021. The previous year Q2 margin was impacted by a one-time international customer settlement. I come to defense engineering segment.
On the back of the government's trust towards indigenization, we continue to remain optimistic on multiple order wins in the medium term. Having said that, the order inflows in Q2 FY 2022 continues to be impacted due to award deferrals. The revenue for Q2 FY 2022 for the defense engineering segment was at INR 8.4 billion, up by 10% over Q2 of the previous year. The job progress across multiple systems jobs that we have executed led to the improvement in revenue for Q2. The reported EBITDA margin at 13.7% for this quarter is a function again of job mix. At the same time, previous year Q2 FY 2021 margin were aided by cost savings and contingency releases on job completion.
At the cost of repetition, we once again reiterate that this business does not manufacture any explosives nor ammunition of any kind, including cluster ammunition or anti-personnel landmines or nuclear weapons or components for such munitions. Further, the business does not customize any delivery systems for such munitions. Now we move on to Hydrocarbon. The receipt of a high-value international order obviously buoys the order book. As per the standard protocols for order intake announcement concerning job and client description and other relevant details will be made to the stock exchange post receipt of specific client approvals. The book-to-bill ratio in Hydrocarbon is currently around 2.5 years. H2 FY 2022 prospects pipeline for Hydrocarbon is around INR 1.2 trillion, which primarily comprises of international prospects of around 80%.
Revenues for Q2 FY 2022 is at INR 48.7 billion, up 20% on Y-o-Y basis, mainly due to peaking of execution activities on onshore jobs. There has been no major margin variation in Q2 FY 2022 vis-à-vis Q2 FY 2021. Moving on to the development projects, that is the concessions portfolio. This segment includes the power development business comprising of Nabha Power Plant and the Uttarakhand Hydro Power Plant up to the date of its divestment, which was August 30, 2021. It also includes Hyderabad Metro. As you are aware, the roads and the transmission line concession business part, which is a part of L&T IDPL, is consolidated at parent level that being under joint venture. The revenues for this segment for Q2 FY 2022 is at INR 11.7 billion, up 3% Y-o-Y.
Majorities of revenues in this segment is contributed by Nabha Power. The lack of coal availability impacted Nabha revenue in Q2, and on the other hand, a subsiding COVID second wave led to improvement in the Hyderabad Metro ridership. In Q1 FY 2022, the average metro ridership was around 55,000 passengers a day, which has improved to 146,000 passengers a day in Q2 FY 2022. As we speak, in the month of October, we have been witnessing on an average around 190,000-200,000 ridership per day. Very recently in Q3, that is what I just now said, it is now ranging between 180,000-200,000.
The Q2 FY 2022 margin in this segment is a combination of the metro, Hyderabad Metro and the Hydel Power Plant up to the date of divestment, which is, as I said earlier, August 30. As you are aware, we are not consolidating the Nabha margins from Q3 FY 2021 onwards. The metro, at a P&L level, reported a loss of INR 4.47 billion in the current quarter. The operating and amortization costs are INR 0.75 billion each, whereas the interest cost of INR 3.7 billion-INR 3.8 billion was incurred during the quarter for Hyderabad Metro. At this juncture, I would like to give a quick status update on the divestments of our concessions portfolio. As I mentioned earlier, our stake in the Hydel Power Plant was successfully divested in this quarter.
The gain on this transfer on this particular divestment is recorded as an exceptional item during Q2 FY 2022. For Nabha, various divestment options are being explored, and we will make the announcement at an appropriate time. Coming to IDPL, we are exploring the possibility of divesting our remaining 51% stake in favor of third-party investors. For Metro, multiple options are in the works currently ranging from seeking state government assistance to getting third-party investors and also refinancing of the existing debt. Further, a combination of improved traffic recovery as well as the transit-oriented development real estate monetization that hopefully should augur well for Hyderabad Metro in the near future. Needless to mention that this asset is an operational asset, and the residual concession period is almost close to 60 years.
Coming to IT & TS portfolio, the revenues for Q2 FY 2022 at INR 78.8 billion, that roughly translates to $1.05 billion, is up by 9% on Q-o-Q basis and 28% on Y-o-Y basis, largely benefiting from the strong tailwinds in this sector. The export billing constituted around 93% of the total customer revenues for the quarter. The IT spends earlier focused largely on enablement and improving efficiencies, whereas the IT spends today are focused more on redefining revenue models and revenue maximization. There are a lot of spends that are happening in areas like cloud, data security and intelligence.
The margins for this segment is a function of wage costs, utilization ratios, onshore/offshore revenue mix and operational efficiencies. I would not like to dwell too much on this as all the three companies in this segment are listed subsidiaries, and the detailed fact sheets are already available in the public domain. Moving on to the other segment. This segment comprises real estate development, Industrial Machinery, valves, and Smart World & Communications. For Q2 FY 2022, the revenues of this segment is at INR 13.8 billion, up by 4% over the comparable quarter of the previous year. The strong growth in Realty and Industrial Machinery business is offset by subdued revenues reported in Smart World & Communications, as well as industrial valves. The margin buoyancy in Q2 FY 2022 is mainly driven by Realty and Industrial Machinery. We move on to financial services.
Here again, L&T Finance Holdings is listed, and the detailed results are available in the public domain. Q2 essentially revolved around pickup in the retail disbursement, strong collections, improved net interest margins and fees, and maintenance of adequate liquidity on the balance sheet. I would like to emphasize here that this business continues to pursue the strategy of higher retailization of its loan book, diversification of liabilities, maintaining prudent ALM, and targeting sustainable net interest margins. Finally, post the rights issue that happened in January 2021, this business has sufficient growth capital. Before I will move on to the final section on the environmental outlook, let me talk about the ESG disclosures. We released the integrated report for FY 2021 on the 21st of October, and that is already available on our website. This integrated report for FY 2021 is the 14th consecutive year of sustainability disclosure by L&T.
The various aspects starting from corporate governance to climate and environment coverage, various aspects of energy consumption, conservation, greenhouse gas emissions reduction, water consumption and recycling, material management and recycling, safety, green portfolio, improved supply chain sustainability, employee engagement, and wellbeing and community development programs are covered in detail in the report. Further, L&T is committed to becoming water and carbon neutral by 2035 and 2040 respectively. The next steps, post-release of the integrated report FY 2021, will be to recommence our engagement with the leading ESG rating agencies in order to explain our ESG journey, which hopefully should translate into improved ratings for our company. Coming to the final section on environment and outlook, I would like to sum up the narrative in two parts. One is our medium to long-term view, and other being a near-term view. I will talk about.
First, I'll talk about the medium to long-term view. For various reasons, we believe that the current decade will be India's decade of inclusive growth. During the last decade, we witnessed multiple reforms like demonetization, GST, IBC, RERA, labor reforms, et cetera, which impacted growth in the near term, but all of these reforms were essential if India were to improve the quality of its growth. Needless to mention that the government followed up the reforms exercise with a sort of a booster dose during the current period to revive the economy, stating, starting from direct tax cuts to introducing the PLI scheme, a fiscal push, RBI monetary easing, National Infrastructure Pipeline, National Monetisation Pipeline, Gati Shakti, et cetera. The base is therefore set for India to grow from now on.
India's current decade could therefore witness CapEx resurgence, which was absent in a meaningful way in the last decade. A combination of public and private CapEx resurgence is expected in the current decade. With PLI-relating investments fructifying, India should possibly become an attractive manufacturing destination, which will alleviate pressure on imports and lead to exports from India. Along with physical infrastructure, we would see substantial investments in the digital infrastructure as well. Needless to mention that for a cleaner India, there will be thrust on renewables, green hydrogen, battery, et cetera, et cetera. The risk to this review could revolve around inflationary conditions across the world, geopolitical tensions, and a possible return of the third COVID wave. Talking about near term, with the progressive weakening of the second COVID wave and the sustained vaccination efforts, the overall business environment is looking a lot more positive.
As I mentioned earlier, there are a plenty of high-frequency economic indicators evidencing a return to normalcy. Further, a near normal monsoon, along with ongoing festive season, coupled with pent-up demand, could give a boost to demand-led recovery across the various segments. Resources generated through the National Monetisation Pipeline could be utilized to fast-track the investment program of the government. Further, the global economic outlook remains fairly strong, aided by respective governments extending fiscal support and central banks offering monetary support. The elevated oil price will positively favor the economic prospects of the GCC nations and give a fillip to several investment programs. Although the global surge in commodity prices augurs well for capacity additions in the minerals and metals sector, but in the interim could pose headwinds to their consumption.
Under this scenario, the company continues to focus on profitable execution of its large order book, leverage strong momentum in its IT & TS portfolio, cost optimization measures through automation and intensive use of digital technologies, release of funds through improved working capital management and a phased divestment of non-core assets. The company is confident of building on the current business momentum and is committed to creation of sustainable returns to all of its stakeholders. Finally, we remain, we continue to retain our guidance of a low- to mid-teens% growth in order inflows and revenues for FY 2022. The projects and manufacturing business in the current year, as I mentioned earlier, the margins would be maintained in and around the same levels that we posted for FY 2021.
The same applies to NWC revenues at the consolidated levels, at the same levels, NWC to revenues for the consolidated group in and around the same levels that we printed for March 21 last year. Before I conclude, our five-year strategic plan is in the final stages of completion. The timing and format for the same will be announced later. That completes my overall summary of Q2 performance. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for this patient hearing. We will now get into Q&A.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Reminder to the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. The first question is from the line of Renu Baid from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening, sir. My first question is to understand a bit more on the execution side. Execution numbers still seem to be relatively weak. While you have given the explanations at your end, have we seen relative weakness in collection from government sector customers, which has led us to moderate the execution pace?
Renu, in Q2, whereas our emphasis has been, and right from the start of this financial year, we have been ensuring that there are certain sites where if the collections are not happening on time, we don't want to invest in further working capital to the extent the asset buildup becomes more than the collections made. The most important thing I would like to emphasize, which I mentioned in my speech earlier, is that in Q2, because of two reasons that there has been supply chain bottlenecks, especially when it comes to imports of materials from other countries. What was expected to come in the month of August doesn't come up, and it comes almost in the month of September. For various reasons.
It could be COVID reasons, it could be also the reasons of, as you're aware, the entire global freight in terms of availability of vessels and containers. That has had some impact. Secondly, the workforce availability, what we have now, almost at 251,000 as of September, is actually even more than what we witnessed in the Q2 of the previous year. I think Q2 of the previous year we closed at around 240,000. Unfortunately, what has happened this time, the mix of workforce also undergone a change. What went out of the sites in the first half of the previous year and what came in the current first half of the current year, there is a change.
To that extent, some amount of efforts have happened to reskill the workforce to the need of the specific sites. This was witnessed in Q1, and in a way it is also witnessed in Q2. Last but not the least, we are executing some major projects in Western India, mostly in Maharashtra and Gujarat. The Cyclone Tauktae and also the rains which happened in the month of September also impacted the third month execution. We do believe that the execution in the second half of the current year we should not be having any of such challenges. That could be possibly optically you're seeing that what could have been expected a higher execution is because of reasons which I just now stated.
Sure. My second question is, given that most of the inflationary trends seem to remain, as in general the inflation that we've seen over the last 12-15 months, what would be the implication of this on the INR 345 billion Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail corridor project that we have won? Do we plan to make any provisions in terms of potential cost overruns? You think it would be adequately provided in the contractual terms, while this is a 3- to 4-year contract in terms of execution timing?
Renu, this was a project that was bid out sometime in Q2 last year. We secured the project in October 2020. As you rightly mentioned, it is a four-year project. I wish to assure you that the cost parameters and assumptions that have been considered, taken, including the contingency assumptions, everything, we do believe that what we estimated the margins at the time of project bid, there has been no substantial change to that as we speak now. The project today is achieved only around the 3%-4% completion, and we would see a substantial progress happening in the next, I would say 12 months. You could see a buildup.
We do not expect, considering the way the project has been bid out and the assumptions that we have considered, we do not expect at this juncture, any major dent in the margins, which was at the time of bidding with respect to this project.
Got it. Lastly, if I can ask one more. On some of the newer areas, we have emerged as one of the contenders in the solar panel manufacturing PLI. What are the planned CapEx and investments? Also, recently there was a retail release on the education technology side. What are L&T's plans in terms of investing in these new and emerging areas and likely growth prospects? Thank you.
Okay. The two, I would say the new initiatives that L&T has undertaken, in the last, I would say one year or so, one which has been, you know, we have already launched that L&T EduTech. Maybe in the next three to four months, we will have another launch happening of a sort of industrial e-commerce kind of a business. These are initiatives that have been already incubated. In terms of further investments into the other areas that we have been talking about, be it electrolyzers or be it batteries or be it I would say data centers and all, these all features as part of our overall strategic plan.
At this juncture it would be inappropriate for me to talk about numbers and figures, but necessary initial steps in terms of filing for approvals or schemes that are being done. In terms of the actual roadmap, maybe you have to wait sometime in the end of Q4 of the current year, we will be able to articulate in each of these new ventures that we are looking ahead for as part of our next five-year plan ending FY 2026.
Okay. Thank you so much and all the best, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sumit Kishore from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is, if I look at the win ratio for orders in the Infrastructure segment, so I'm looking at the infra order win divided by the reduction in the order prospect base for Infrastructure. The win ratio appears to be a single digit while in hydrocarbons it is a healthy, you know, double-digit number. Were there any misses to competition in Infrastructure segment? And could you talk about the competitive intensity? Particularly for hydrocarbons, what was the large order that was not disclosed on the exchange?
Sorry. Can you repeat the second question, Sumit?
I was saying that, you know, there was a large order in hydrocarbons, which apparently was not disclosed on the exchanges.
I did talk about it when I was summing up the performance. Okay? That we will announce it the moment we have the client approvals. Okay? Kindly bear until then. Coming to your first question, I will put it like this, that with respect to the Infrastructure segment, we have had opportunities coming across all the segments that we are present in the entire gamut of Infrastructure. Consciously, we have been very careful in pursuing these bids in a sense that we are not bidding very aggressively for projects where we see plenty of competition coming up. As you may be aware, that we have been desisting to bid for HAM-related projects in the transportation infrastructure. Definitely, the pipeline, as I mentioned, looks to be quite good.
If I have to go by our past track record, the H2 performance and the conversions thereon gives us the confidence that an overall level for the projects and manufacturing business, we still would like to retain the guidance of up to low- to mid-teens for FY 2022.
Okay. Could you spell out the breakup of order prospects in Infrastructure segment-wise? For hydrocarbons, what is domestic and what is overseas?
I was talking of Hydrocarbon. The total order prospects was INR 1.2 trillion, against which the international prospect is almost INR 1 trillion. Okay? Now, coming to the Infrastructure side, I was talking about a total order prospects of INR 5.29 trillion, out of which international was INR 1.08 trillion. Okay. When I take the total of INR 5.29 trillion order prospects, I would say that it is evenly spread out between buildings and factories, heavy civil, transportation infrastructure, water, power transmission distribution. There is a small number which accrues onto the minerals and the metallurgical business as well. For the sake of giving you a flavor, this INR 5.29, I would say is fairly well spread out between the first five segments and a small amount to minerals and metals.
Because we do believe that the private sector CapEx, especially in this segment, although it's seemingly very positive, but in terms of the actual investment outlay, that should be happening sometime next year.
Okay. Just one last point. You know, your core business margins are tracking up 160 basis points year-on-year, right? You have had a calibrated execution approach so far. Is the guidance seeming to imply that in the second half of the year as your execution picks up, the margin gains will be evened out? Is there a possibility of beating your flat margin guidance for the core business?
Sumit, see, when we gave the guidance of 10.3 for core business EBITDA for FY 2022, this was basis a lot of assumptions in a sense that we knew very well when we gave this guidance was in the month of May. We were in the middle of the COVID second wave, and we did expect that Q1 will be a little muted, and our guidance was basis that the revenue momentum or the execution momentum to be normalized from July onwards. As it stands now, it is in line with our own internal estimates and basis this internal estimates, and that is how we gave a guidance of 10.3. Any update to this, maybe we will see at the end of Q3 how it is shaping up.
At that point of time, we will try to communicate if there is a change at all.
Sure. Thank you so much, Pierre, and wish you all the best.
Thank you, Sumit.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mohit Kumar from DAM Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, sir.
Good evening.
Congratulations on a very good quarter, especially maintaining the EBITDA margin or improving the EBITDA margin for the core business. My first question is on the order prospect. It's slightly subjective question. Are you more upbeat about the prospect compared to, let's say, May 2021? Or do you think it's a concern?
We closed March, and at the time when we gave in May, the order prospects pipeline was INR 9.06 trillion. When we closed June, our order prospects pipeline was around INR 8.96 trillion. One good feature is that during Q2, the tendering activities has been almost in the range of INR 2 crores, okay? We do expect this momentum to in fact be fast-forwarded.
You know, based on the past, the kind of order prospects project-wise that we have across all the sub-segments, and also based on our business' assessment of the price point that the customer is looking at, the intensity of competition, and also the historic conversion of order prospects to actual orders, it gives us the confidence, Mohit, that even with respect to order inflow, we should be in a position to maintain that guidance that we are talking about of a low- to mid-teens kind of a growth for FY 2022, when compared to FY 2021. When I talk about the strike rate, and this is again based on assessments and past statistics, very often we have seen that the conversion of order prospects to the actual orders ranges from 15% in a bad year to 20% in a good year.
I will stay put here because at the end of the day, it's a question of tendering, bid submissions, competitive intensity, meeting the project estimates of the client, and last but not least, the final ordering. This is what the, I mean, our entire assumption construct is there, basis which we still are confident to retain our guidance of order inflow for FY 2022.
As a related question is, are we seeing improvement in order prospects from domestic order inflow, especially from private sector, given a plethora of activities? I'm asking especially from the FY 2023, you know, perspective. Do you think that the private sector CapEx will pick up and we'll have a higher order inflow contribution as we enter FY 2023?
See, the way we are looking at FY 2021, FY 2022, the private sector composition in the order prospects and in a way in our order backlog also is around 20%, okay? The only one change that we are witnessing in FY 2022 is that the share of public sector corporations or public sector units putting on the tenders and, you know, announcing awards, that has gone up. Whereas the share of the aggregate share of the central and the state government has actually come down.
It is in a way positive, but I do believe that in H2, given the fact the government's recent announcement of National Monetisation Pipeline and also the Gati Shakti initiative announced by the government, by the Prime Minister, I guess the next six months, you could see maybe a ramp-up of central government and state government-led ordering, I would say, prospects. As I said earlier, the share of private sector, which is today at around 20%, maybe in FY 2023, that could go up. As I mentioned, that we could see substantial investments or outlays being announced by the major industrials, core industrials, including the new age businesses like, you know, data centers, and even I would say some of the IT powerhouses are also now looking at investment in new campuses.
That could be something next year. It would be premature for us to conclude, in terms of giving a number of that share of private sector to the total order prospects, in for the next year at this juncture.
Lastly on this, timeline for Lakshya 2026 strategic plan, when do we expect it to be announced by end of December, or you think it's a Q4 thing?
As I said earlier, I think it would be a Q4, Mohit.
Understood, sir. Thank you, sir. All the best. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ankur Sharma from HDFC Life. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Good evening. A couple of questions. One on the domestic ordering, and, you know, as you said that there have been delays in finalization, despite good tendering. Just wanted to understand from you know, what's leading to this delay and, you know, why should it therefore change, say, in the next quarter or so? You know, I mean, your thoughts on that.
See, Ankur, it is like this. Again, I mean, I will take it in two parts. One is that FY 2022 and especially the second half, the assumption construct that we are having is a pre-COVID normalized second half. Okay?
Sure.
For the country, for economy and for L&T. Usually, given the fact the government has kept up and come out with a record set of multiple announcements, starting with NMP and Gati Shakti and so on. It would be very, I think and with the kind of order prospects, the projects that have been listed out, it gives us the confidence that like in any year in the past, pre-COVID, I'm talking of FY 2020 and before, the H2 for the current year would see a lot of activity in terms of tendering, awarding, and announcement of awards. The case with L&T with respect to execution. We also as we speak, we believe we are well-placed in various bids that we have submitted.
Mm-hmm.
Procedural delays which we have witnessed in Q2, I think that should wane out and we should see back to kind of a normal, pre-COVID, you know, busy season, second half of the country.
Okay. It's just procedural delays and things will pick up as we get along. Okay. Sir, would you also want to quantify your L1 orders, say as of September, October end?
Ankur, we are at any point of time well-placed L1, but we have desisted until now to announce that because what happens is, you may get placed L1, but there could be delays and so on. It would be inappropriate for me to give a number to that.
Okay, fair. Just one last one on execution. You know, as you said, you know, and as we also understand, you know, there were rains, you know, there were some labor issues, et cetera, in Q2. Now, you know, as we head into the second half and of course, with the assumption that there's no big third wave, you know, execution should kind of pick up in a meaningful manner. Would you believe that second half we could at least, maybe get back to the second half 20 kind of top line? You know, that is the pre-COVID levels.
Ankur, the construct is obviously that it is a pre-COVID level of execution. Okay? As I mentioned, as of September, the workforce across the 800-odd sites were around 251,000 or so. Now I believe it is the update is that it's already ramped up to 260,000. I also confirm from the businesses like what those challenges which we witnessed in the last one year, I'm talking from almost August 2020 to maybe August 2021, where workforce changes also had an impact in terms of productivity. I don't think that that also should not be a challenge anymore. The only place where we could have a challenge is like that, as I mentioned, on supply chain. The domestic supply chain is completely up and running absolutely smooth.
When it comes to the overseas part, there has been some challenges. Of course, it is improving, but that could be one possible risk assumption, you know, we are looking at. In terms of our experience, like I mentioned, that we have been consciously trying to balance growth and capital employed, and that has been the philosophy in the last four quarters, especially post-COVID, and in a way that is witnessed in our working capital numbers. Collections have been improving. If I take into a pre-COVID kind of H2 construct, then the collections usually, you know, jump up, and that should also enable us to progress on execution to touch on the targets that we have set ourselves to with respect to our projects and manufacturing portfolio.
Okay, fair. Okay. Great. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Puneet Gulati from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I want to, you know, get some more color on the nature of Hydrocarbon business that you are winning and whether one should assume that most of these businesses would still remain a single-digit margin business or, is there a potential to move to double-digit there?
Hydrocarbons. Okay. I mean, just to Puneet, once again reiterate the Hydrocarbon order prospects that we have now is almost for H2 at INR 1.2 trillion, out of which 0.2 is domestic and almost INR 1 trillion is international. Yes, there are I would say good amount of competition for both the domestic and the international opportunity. The international prospects today at INR 1 trillion has gone up because there was hardly any ordering in the last 15 months or so. That itself, because of the crude prices being what they are, we do see a lot of inquiries and you know plans coming out by all the customers in the Middle East area.
As far as margins are concerned, as we speak now, we can only talk about the margins which are residing in the order book. Which will continue at the way we have been, you know, printing out for this particular segment for the last two to three years. Going forward, in terms of giving you a margin forecast on the bids that we are going to submit against these order prospects, I think it would be a little more premature for us to comment, because ultimately competitive intensity, client visibility, client connect, the nature of the technical complexity, all of this have a bearing on the pricing. I will stay put with that comment, Puneet.
Okay, that's fair enough. Second is, you know, while you say you'll talk about your, you know, the solar and electrolyzer business in the other plan, but you also mentioned EduTech in e-commerce. Can you talk a bit about what kind of capital allocation are you planning for those?
At this stage, these are all, you know, startup investments. We have just launched EduTech. It happened on the fifteenth of October. Obviously, there will be spend happening. In terms of overall thought process, how we would like to run this business and grow these businesses, it will all form part of our overall strategic plan, Puneet. As it stands now, the investment that we are making is not substantial, and they are just, you know, incubation investments, I would say. Yes, going forward, this may require. In terms of our plans, how are we going to approach it? Kindly wait for three to four months. In Q4 hopefully we will be able to articulate as part of our strategic plan for FY 2022 to 2026.
Unlike the IT, do you see any synergies in EduTech, or is it just very, very exploratory business?
No. Okay. If at all you can say, it is a blend of our technology capability that we have done through IT and a domain expertise that we have in engineering. We are trying to marry both these competencies to create something for India's engineering talent.
Understood. That's very, very useful. Thank you so much and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nitin Arora from Axis Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Sorry for delving back again on the execution. You know, we have a very strong backlog. You know, directionally, you know, I'm not trying to gauge, because Q2 is only being a very low quarter for us, in the overall context. You know, given, the backlog has been strong from last four, five quarters, I understand there was a COVID, is it possible to guide something here in terms of execution? Because whether we look at your second half of FY 2021 or whether I look at your second half of FY 2020. The second half of FY 2020 base is actually lower than second half of FY 2021.
If you can guide us where we should end the second half, you know, in terms of, let's say, the base of 2021 or 2020, can we go at 15%-20%, given what's the backlog right now? I'm assuming, you know, the projects which you have, the government also wants, you know, the cycle is getting shortened to execute much faster, few of the large projects because of the general election part as well. It will be really helpful if you can help us on the execution part, which is in our control, not the government part.
Nitin, you have asked me multiple questions, so I will try to you know, sum it up in one answer. Nitin, when we started the year, I mean, maybe I'm sorry for repeating it, but we have given a guidance of a growth in revenue for our projects and manufacturing business again, a low to a mid-teen kind of a forecast. This was basis the time, you know, having taken into account the possible COVID-related delays and so on. Okay. In our opinion, the second half of FY 2022 is going to be a very busy second half as far as execution is concerned. Apart from the one or two risks that I just now cited in response to the previous question, we don't think. Of course, if things can change, we'll have to again revise and update.
I do believe that we should be in a position to, in terms of execution, given this order backlog, I think we should see a reasonably you know, compensatory H2 to maintain the revenue guidance. That's the way I will put it up for you. I would also like to reiterate that this record order book, what we are talking about-
Mm-hmm.
All the projects barring for maybe 4%-5%, which would be, I would say, a slow-moving project backlog, where for various reasons, either we have stopped execution because payment's not coming. Almost 95%-96% of this order book is active, and subject to all things happening based on the construct of the assumptions that I just spoke, we should see a more, I would say, given the overall yearly guidance, we should see an improved execution in the next six months. I don't think, you know, we should see that way. If you were to see the entire projects and manufacturing revenue now for the first six months, that is H1 FY 2022, that has actually gone up 27% odd over H1 of the previous year.
In a sense, we believe that we are looking at more and more than better pre-COVID normal, given the fact that we have a large order book.
That's helpful. Second part, you know, given the way oil prices are in the previous cycles, you know, there used to be a lot of gung-ho on the oil and gas projects at a global level. You know, when these oil prices used to touch or has been in that range of $80-$85. Any sense can you give us? Because at one end, a lot of the investors who are putting money, let's say, in a shale gas or an oil and gas are restricted because of this green compliance and ESG. You know, I just want to understand more from is it the ground activity still in a wait-and-watch mode in terms of oil and gas, or you really see, you know, the activity really picking up given where the oil prices are?
If you can comment on that at a global scale?
Nitin, in terms of the uptick in order prospects in the Hydrocarbon segment, you know, for us, it's not that it has been only in the one or two quarters. We did see improved prospects coming from the Q3 of the previous year itself, once oil started moving upwards of $60. Okay?
Mm-hmm.
If I had to talk about a statistic, the Middle East, you know, has been investing almost $80 billion-$100 billion worth of investments or awards given in the last 4-5 years, each year. Out of which, oil and gas at any point of time has been almost, I would say 40%-50% share. If I say $100 billion worth of investments being announced, then oil and gas will almost feature 35%-40%. Given the uptick in oil prices, you could see multiple investments happening, if not in greenfield, but it could be in brownfield refurbishment. Change in the product mix lead to additional CapEx to meet the newer demands.
I guess, we are quite, I would say, reasonably bullish on this part of the world, arising from the increase in crude prices. That in turn also has a positive impact because that also creates. Because higher the oil price, the more the surplus these, you know, countries have. That should also go, you know, hopefully, you know, augur well with respect to the other sectors in Middle East where we operate, mainly in power transmission distribution, and also, to some extent in transportation infrastructure and also water. At this stage it looks to be, you know, what we are looking at is seemingly, you know, good, very positive from what it was almost a year back.
Just a bookkeeping question. Can you share your first half Hyderabad Metro's revenue, EBITDA and PAT and real estate revenues, EBITDA and PAT or EBITDA?
I would put it like this, that the first half of. Just one second. Okay. You're asking for first half?
Yes.
Hyderabad Metro first half of current year is around INR 140 crores total revenues. Okay? But it has a combination of you can take 70% of the fare and balance is, you know, other income arising of lease rentals and advertisements and all. Okay. INR 140 crores and, maybe operating cost, maybe around INR 150-odd crores. Thereby we have a, I would say, to the extent, some operating gains. INR 142 crores has been the first, half income.
Okay. The real estate revenue
The overall construct now, as I spoke, that the amortization per quarter is around INR 75 crores. That is the amortization of the lease assets. Interest cost at the current rate levels is around INR 350-odd crores.
Can you share the same revenue EBITDA for real estate contribution in the first half?
The real estate Q2 revenues has been in the range of INR 320 crore, real estate business. Okay. The EBITDA is because real estate, the EBITDA gets clocked in only when you hand over the units that you have been giving possession. Obviously at INR 320 crore, the EBITDA margin is almost at 40%+.
Awesome. Thank you very much. I will come back to that. Thanks for answering. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Atul Tiwari from Citi. Please go ahead.
My question has been [answered].
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Parikshit Kandpal from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, P. Ramakrishnan. My first question is on execution. Just wanted one clarification that the stepped execution has nothing to do with any client specific issues, right? It's largely because we have been mobilizing the site, but there has been challenges because of reskilling and other related issues in supply chain and other. Nothing specific on the client side, clients asking you to delay the execution for something there. Is it the right assumption?
Parikshit, you are 100% correct. As I mentioned, I once again reiterate, we today are working at almost 700-800-odd sites in the entire infrastructure space. It is not correct to say that we don't have client-specific issues in any of them, but they are insignificant compared to the assumption construct that we are talking about. As we speak, a major part of our orders are in very active category, and all of them are progressing well. For reasons which are specific to each project location, there can be, you know, some, I would say, issues for which, as I mentioned, the reason for execution being what they are until they H1. Going forward, there are no specific client issues which will impact significantly the execution momentum with respect to our Infrastructure segment.
Okay. The second question is on Hyderabad Metro. You did touch upon the options being evaluated there to right-size the capital. I just wanted to know by which quarter you will not require any funding support from the parent to this entity. By when can we expect resolution wherein we'll stop doing the last funding of this project?
I would put it like this. At the start of this year, we did talk about that we are setting aside INR 2,000 crores. Until now we have already infused INR 1,200 crores. We do expect another requirement of maybe INR 1,000-odd crores until March 2022. Internally, we are working on a timeline to have this entire refinancing and the capital restructuring, all of this to get going and get completed or in terms of clear visibility of completion and everything happening by March 2022.
From first quarter of next financial year, the project will be self-sufficiently servicing its debt and interest.
That's the objective, Parikshit. That is how the entire our group is now currently working on that basis only. Let me also tell you that it is a large project and obviously we are taking assistance of the state government and the kind of assistance that we are looking at, that also over a period of time may undergo in some form, you know, if not the amount, but the form of assistance could change. Okay. Obviously it is a decision of the government, and it takes its own time. We are also actively pursuing to refinance the current loan with some extended maturity so that the additional burden of arranging cash for debt repayments also do not crop up. All of these are targets, and we hope that we will achieve substantial progress and maybe some sort of a closure by March 2022.
Okay. The last question is on the international order book. It is fixed price in nature and given the commodity inflation and headwinds there. How protected or how much cushion you have that it may not result in any significant deterioration in the margin, that order book's margin? Because you did mention that about 62% of the order book has passed through clauses. Just wanted your view on that.
Parikshit, first and foremost, I think, as a practice, we give the margin guidance for the year. Okay? We don't go beyond that. But having said this, to the specific question, our international order book is if I take an order book of INR 330,000 crore, the international order book would be around INR 75,000 crore. Okay? And as we speak now, the revenues that will accrue from the execution of this part of the order book also are the kind of projects that we have taken. Based on the progress, the milestone completion, the contingency release that we will do for some of these offsetting increases, we are reasonably sure that all of this would aggregate to the entire portfolio of the project and manufacturing guidance that we have given at 10.3% for FY 2022.
Okay. Just the last thing on the real estate. If you can quantify how much of the sellable area currently L&T is holding in terms of million sq ft, and potentially the timeline for development of this sellable area.
The total real estate area is maybe around 50 million sq ft. Of course, that includes the Hyderabad Metro almost at 17 million sq ft. I will take that as the Realty business which will actively pursue in terms of whatever proposals or it is having. In terms of residential units, that will aggregate to maybe around 30-33 million sq ft. In terms of, I would say, the total number of units that have been launched is roughly around 7,600, out of which we have handed over, which means we have booked the revenues of almost 2,900. We have sold the flats, but we have not handed over, which means it is in a sense an order book, which is around 2,500.
The balance is what you can call in prospects pipeline, which means yet another 2,200 yet to be sold against the flats of 7,600 that we have launched.
Okay. What will be the total land bank holding, which will potentially in future come up for development in acres, if you have that number?
In terms of the land bank holdings, what we are currently, you know, wherever it has been L&T's own land, that is the Powai. We have Navi Mumbai. We have Bangalore. These are the three places where we are, you know, setting up real estate projects in our own land banks. As far as, I would say bought out land banks, we have not done yet. All of this thing is being done through a joint development route, where L&T and that real estate developer who holds the land title or the land position, we jointly develop, and we have a share of revenues depending on the location and the overall construct of the project.
Okay. Just last thing, this INR 30 million covers all these land bank holdings as well, like we mentioned about Powai and
Yes. It includes.
Everything.
Not only the own premises, it includes the land, the joint development as well.
Average realization about INR 15,000 a sq ft on this?
No. I would not, you are asking me specifics. I don't have that data ready with me.
Okay. That's all. Thank you.
Across. I think
Okay. That's all from my side, sir. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amish Shah from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, P. Ramakrishnan. Good evening.
Hi, Amish.
P. Ramakrishnan, you know, my first question is on the cash that we have on the books. It's close to $6 billion, and obviously is a pretty large sum. You know, with the COVID risk now abating, is there a potential for a one-off large payout?
Amish, at the standalone level, because in terms of when you talk about payout, right, it all depends on the L&T entity level. I think the overall surplus we are having currently is INR 19,000 crore. At the group level, which essentially means, cash lying in standalone of INR 19,000 crore, almost $1 billion or $1 billion or maybe INR 7,000 crore, which are lying in the IT & TS subsidiaries. The balance largely would be financial services, but that is not to be considered as a cash surplus. If I talk about, you know, in terms of INR 19 plus 7, 26, 27 thousand crore. Okay?
In terms of INR 19,000 crore, yes, as I mentioned at the start of my review itself, we are looking at options as to part of the overall improvement in ROE, what are the different, I would say, things which L&T has to take and do. This is being a very important parameter why we are framing out our strategic plan. Obviously, maybe in the year of Q4 of the current year, you will be able to get a better, I would say, perspective as to what we intend doing as far as surplus cash is concerned.
I wish to tell you that whatever cash flows that the parent entity has have accrued over the last 12 months, because in the Q1 of the last year, we did take a debt in the form of almost INR 12,000 crore in anticipation of the COVID situation going worse. We were proved wrong. Fortunately, we were proved wrong. Not only we had the collections happening, we also had the collections of EIC. Of course, we have also given back to some shareholders in terms of, you know, special dividends. Wait for 3 or 4 months, and then we'll definitely address this point in terms of how we intend deploying the cash or returning the cash in any form, as part of our overall strategic plan exercise.
Sure. Piyush, the other question is related to your mix of order book between central, state, PSU, government. You know, currently you said that your order book towards central government is only 10%.
Mm-hmm.
Is that because at one point in time, central government payments were getting delayed, and on the other hand, state government projects were funded by multilateral, which were relatively safe. Now with the government, you know, cash flows improving, is it a possibility that the skew goes more in favor of central government when you look at your pipeline prospects as well?
In terms of the overall pipeline prospects, no. As I talked about that INR 6.83 trillion, out of which the total, you know, domestic is almost INR 4.67. I think it would be evenly spread between, I would say 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. Central government, 1/3 of this INR 4.66, state government, 1/3, and the balance is public sector. That's the way I'll put it up.
Okay. You know, the third question is actually quite futuristic, but I just want to understand your openness to it. Let's say U.S. currently you have a very small percentage of your order book. If U.S. goes for this large Infrastructure stimulus that we are talking about, would you be open to participating in that geography or, you know, it's just a new market and you won't venture out?
Amish Shah, I think, 15 years back, we consciously decided to de-risk from our dependency on India and went ahead and, you know, to be reasonably well-known and big in the Middle East from all segments. It has taken us maybe. You know, we are known as one of the top contractors in many of the segments in Middle East. Two to three years back, we expanded. Further, we went westwards. We went into select six or seven countries in Africa, doing projects in Infrastructure like power transmission, distribution, water. Also while we speak, we are executing a big order in Algeria in hydrocarbons. As we speak now, we are stretching to the current geographies of India, Middle East and Africa and also, Southeast Asia.
In terms of, you know, addressing to the opportunities in U.S., again, at this juncture it would be premature for me to conclude. I don't think at this juncture we will be addressing that opportunity because I believe in the EPC contracting business, typically there are most of the companies are localized corporations to address the opportunities in those respective geographies.
Makes sense. You know, just one-
At this juncture, okay, if I have to put it like this, Amish. Africa from the current seven or eight countries, we may actually expand into another four or five countries or so. I would say until then, I don't think we will be expanding beyond there.
Got it. Just one final one quickly. Is there anything within the ESG matrix that one can look out for? You know, what is it that we should look out for in terms of progress incrementally?
If you go through the integrated report, which covers our entire ESG journey from FY 2016 to FY 2021 in respect of the major parameters, be it water conservation, energy conservation or emission reduction of emissions. I guess what we set ourselves as a target, we have been, you know, better than the target in all these parameters. We, you know, have gone ahead with a clear goal of being both carbon and water neutral for those years of 2035 and 2040. I guess in terms of the detailing out, maybe the
Again, it will all form part of our strategic plan as the ESG plan also in terms of the you know, fresh targets over the next five years, how we are going to do it. Today we have set ourselves, but how we are going to do it will feature as part of our overall sustainability plan.
Makes sense. Thank you, PR, and wish you the best.
Okay.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ashish Shah from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead. Ashish Shah, your line is in talk mode. Please go ahead with your question.
Hello. Yeah, am I audible now?
Yes, sir, you are audible.
Yes, Ashish.
Yeah. Yeah, sorry for the thing up here. What I'm saying, sir, just one question. In our order prospect, are there any large projects exceeding like $1 million in value? The kind of projects that we would have got in the past, like Riyadh Metro or some of the other very large ones. Because that's where I think L&T will have a very clear advantage over the other small and midsize orders where we face a lot of competition. Any color you can give on that? That's it. Thank you.
Ashish, as far as the order prospects pipeline that we are looking at 6.83, it is, I would say, a combination of all the sectors where we are targeting with reasonably large parcels and where we believe that we have a good chance of, you know, bidding and getting those projects awarded based on the, you know, bid award ratio that I was talking about in a good year, 70%-20-odd%. It's not that there are only one or two big-ticket items. I would say it is a well spread out mix of order sizes across all the segments.
Okay. There are certain large size orders or, I mean, of the order scale of $1 billion?
There are in hydrocarbons. There is also in the heavy civil, we do have some large ticket items. But it would be very inappropriate for me to list it out at this juncture. Sure, I understand. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take the last question from the line of Kirti Jain from Canara HSBC Life. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. My question was with regard to the infra segment margins which you have improved. Apart from the reasons you highlighted, what are the key changes which you have and initiatives which you have taken in last one or two years, which is leading to improved margin in our infra segment? If you can highlight something, that would be great.
Kirti, I mean, let me tell you that, as far as Infrastructure margins are concerned, is a function of, I would say multiple subsegments and, also domestic overseas, right?
Yeah.
For FY 2019, FY 2020, Infrastructure margins were impacted because of certain cost overrun jobs, mostly in the transportation Infrastructure side. Such of those jobs are almost near their completion. To that extent, we do not envisage any sort of cost overruns happening. Next is in terms of initiatives that we kick-started sometime in the start of FY 2018, okay? In terms of digitizing most of the site equipment, okay? To enable improved productivity and lower diesel consumption and so on and so forth. The cost of doing detailed engineering in terms of accuracy and all, which was earlier a little manual. Nowadays, techniques like geospatial and BIM and all of that have actually become a part of the day-to-day activity of all the project bids or the projects that we are executing.
Some of these technology-led activities and the digital initiatives of centralizing all of this plant and equipment has enabled us to, you know, achieve some amount of productivity gains. Some of that, let me tell you, for the segment it caters to could also be passed over as, you know, being competitive in that segment, those gains also. It's a combination of the bad, the cost overrun jobs, you know, I mean, they are all now tapering off. And the new jobs that we have executed coming into some sort of a threshold margin. Because FY 2021 is sort of an outlier year because you can't attribute anything and everything because for various reasons, because of COVID and all, many things had an implication.
FY 2022, which is a normalized, I do believe that, you know, having given the margin for Infrastructure in FY 2021, what they printed, taking into account the COVID-led issues, tapering of bad projects and all, and we have maintained the same margin stack even for FY 2022.
Correct.
We do believe that, you know, with the commodity headwinds are affecting some part of the orders in that segment, but with this improved productivity, margin threshold and also various cost optimization initiative in terms of design optimization, engineering optimization, and even material substitution with approval of client, all of this should hopefully ensure that we are able to sustain the same margins in FY 2022 as well.
My question was because of the things, because you have achieved this performance in a hyperinflation scenario when almost all of the material costs have doubled, and you have a good quantum of book as a fixed price contract, you have achieved such a number. Also in terms of working capital.
No, no, Kirti, you are absolutely right in that question. I wish to tell is that this commodity price increase we are all witnessing and all of us agree. In the projects business that L&T has been executing for the last so many decades, it is not that the commodity prices have been impacted only this time. We are witnessing current times and we are stating that. I don't think in the previous ever, maybe almost 8 or 10 years, you would have seen some amount of commodity, you know, prices going up and down. I don't think we have attributed to commodity upswings or downswings impacting the margins either way. It all depends on the fact is how we are bid out, what kind of assumptions we have taken, what contingencies, what buffers we have considered.
If your engineering is perfect, if the bill of quantities is perfect, then everything, you know, you will have impact on certain jobs, but similarly you will have impact on, positive impact on the other jobs also. It is an assessment of all of these things as, you know, one portfolio is what gives us the guidance. It will not be right of me to say that all the margins, you know, the way I've been bid will happen, but it's at the portfolio level, we are reasonably sure that we will be able to weather the commodity price action. We have demonstrated until six months. Hopefully in the next six months also you would see it that way.
Okay. We will not see any one-off provision now, sir? Correct me-
I will not be able to comment specific to your question, so let us see.
Sure, sir. Thanks a lot, sir. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. P. Ramakrishnan for closing comments. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Faizan, and thank you to all of you for having taken your time to attend this call. On behalf of L&T, I wish you all the very best for the festive season and the best wishes for a very healthy, happy and prosperous 2022. I look forward to connecting with you again in the next investor call, which will possibly be the Q3 earnings call scheduled end of January. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Larsen & Toubro Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.