Now I hand the conference over to Mr. P. Ramakrishnan from Larsen & Toubro . Thank you. Over to you, Mr. P. Ramakrishnan.
Thank you, Sagar. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. A very warm welcome to all of you to the Q1 FY 2026 earnings call of Larsen & Toubro . The earnings presentation was uploaded on the stock exchange and on our website at 6:45 P.M. I hope you had a good chance to take a quick look at the numbers. As usual, instead of going through the entire presentation, I will take you through the important highlights for the quarter in the next 30 minutes or so, post which I will be taking the Q&A. Before I begin the overview, the customary disclaimer.
The presentation which we have uploaded on the stock exchange and our website today, including the discussions we will have on the call today, may contain certain forward-looking statements concerning L&T Group'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. I will request you to go through the detailed disclaimer, which is available in slide two of our earnings presentation that we have uploaded today. The Indian economy demonstrated resilience in an otherwise volatile quarter, punctuated by trade tariff stresses and conflicts in West Asia. Strong balance sheets, political and policy stability, and demographic and digitalization opportunities continue to drive India's growth story. Key high-frequency indicators in the services and manufacturing sectors continue to signal broad-based growth.
The easing on inflation, a favorable monsoon, and the RBI's 50 basis points reduction in the repo rate at its recently concluded June meeting could further aid the growth momentum in the economy. In calendar year 2025, global economic activity is expected to remain subdued with an uneven momentum. Regional growth patterns have become fragmented as geopolitical and policy uncertainties reshape the economic outlook. The GCC, led by Saudi Arabia, is likely to continue the investment momentum in both the physical and digital infrastructure in the region. However, any further escalation of conflicts in the region could pose increased uncertainty for financial markets, energy prices, investments, and global trade flows. Having covered the macro landscape, let me now share a few important highlights for the quarter.
Coming to order book, during the quarter, our order book in the products and manufacturing business portfolio has crossed the significant milestone of INR 6 trillion. In the hydrocarbon segment, effective 1st April 2025, the business is scaled out into offshore and onshore verticals. This strategic move will enable greater specialization, operational agility, enhanced capabilities, and better client focus and relationship to navigate the evolving energy landscape while continuing to deliver world-class solutions. With respect to the green energy initiative of Larsen & Toubro , L&T GreenTech, which is a wholly owned subsidiary, has won the bid to build, own, and operate a 10 kTpa green hydrogen plant for Indian Oil Corporation for its Panipat refinery. The plant will supply green hydrogen to IOCL under a 25-year build-own-operate contract. Further, L&T GreenEnergy has established two wholly owned subsidiaries: Panipat Green Hydrogen Pvt. Ltd.
for the IOCL Panipat project, and L&T GreenEnergy Kandla Pvt. Ltd. for developing other green hydrogen and derivative products. Coming to L&T Semiconductor Technologies, which again is a 100% subsidiary, this company, along with the local partner, has signed an asset transfer agreement with a Japanese corporation for the power module business acquisition. Coming to L&T Finance, the consolidated loan book of L&T Finance crossed the INR 1 trillion milestone in Q1 FY 2026. The retail portfolio mix is now at 98% of the total loan book. The business also completed the acquisition of the board loan business from Paul Merchant Finance Pvt. Ltd. by way of a slum sale on the 9th of June. The company has been assigned a debut investment-grade rating by international rating agencies. The one is of Standard & Poor’s. The rating is BBB - long-term and A3 short-term issuer credit rating. With a long-term rating.
As positive. The Fitch has also given a long-term foreign currency and local currency issuer default rating of BBB - with a stable outlook. With respect to L&T Hyderabad Metro, effective 17th May, a fare per passenger has been revised upwards by 30% over the existing fares. However, a discount was extended to commuters, which effectively resulted in a net increase of 20%. L&T achieved a significant milestone by becoming the first Indian corporate to issue an ESG bond under the SEBI's newly introduced ESG and sustainability-linked bond framework. As part of this transaction, L&T is committed to environmental targets, including a decrease in the intensity of freshwater withdrawal and emissions of greenhouse gases. These initiatives are in line with the company's long-term sustainability goals of achieving water neutrality by 2035 and carbon neutrality by 2040.
The company issued INR 5 billion in non-convertible debentures with a 3-year maturity and a 6.35% coupon rate. We will now cover the various financial performance parameters for Q1 FY 2026. We are pleased to highlight that we have begun our final year of StratPlan FY 2026 on a strong note with a robust performance across the various financial parameters. Our group order inflows for Q1 registered a YoY growth of 33%. On the back of a strong ordering momentum, the order book at INR 6.13 trillion as of June 2025 has registered a substantial growth of 25% on a YoY basis. Aided by a strong execution momentum from several businesses within the products and manufacturing portfolio, the group revenues for the quarter registered a growth of 16% on a YoY basis. Our margins in the products and manufacturing portfolio at 7.6% have remained stable on a YoY basis.
As of June 2025, our net working capital revenue stood at 10.1%, reflecting a strong improvement of 380 basis points on a YoY basis. Similarly, our return on equity on a trailing 12-month basis as of June 2025 is at 17%, improving by 230 basis points on a YoY basis. I will now move on to the individual performance parameters. The first one is order inflow. Our group order inflows for Q1 FY 2026 at INR 945 billion registered a YoY growth of 33%. Within the group order inflows, the products and manufacturing businesses secured order inflows of INR 766 billion for Q1, reporting a robust growth of 41% over the corresponding period of the previous year. Our Q1 order inflows in the products and manufacturing portfolio are mainly from infrastructure and carbon light solutions businesses.
During the current quarter, our share of international orders in the products and manufacturing portfolio is at 48% as compared to 40% in Q1 of last year. Moving on to prospects pipeline, we have a reasonably strong prospects pipeline of INR 14.8 trillion for the remaining nine months of the current financial year. As compared to INR 9.1 trillion for the same time last year, this represents a sharp increase of 63% on a YoY basis. The increase in the prospects pipeline is mainly led by infrastructure and hydrocarbon segments. The broad breakup of the overall prospects pipeline for the remaining nine months is as follows. Infrastructure: INR 7.97 trillion vis-à-vis INR 6.03 trillion last year, representing an increase of 32%. Hydrocarbon: INR 5.78 trillion vis-à-vis INR 2.17 trillion last year, representing an increase of more than 100%.
Carbon light solutions: INR 0.55 trillion vis-à-vis INR 0.45 trillion last year, representing a modest increase of 22%. The green and clean energy order prospects is now at INR 0.21 trillion vis-à-vis INR 0.10 trillion last year. This increase is primarily led by gas-to-power related opportunities outside of India. The heavy engineering and the precision engineering systems combined together, the order prospects is at INR 0.30 trillion as compared to INR 0.31 trillion last year. Moving on to the order book, the order book as of June 2025 is at INR 6.13 trillion, up 25% as compared to June 2024. The products and manufacturing order book has a balanced geographic mix, with 54% of the order book coming from domestic markets and 46% from international markets.
Out of the international order book of INR 2.83 trillion, around 82% is from the Middle East and 18% is from the rest of the world. In our view, the various countries in the Middle East will continue to focus on investments in oil and gas, infrastructure, industrialization, and energy transition despite the volatile oil prices in the near to medium term. The breakdown of the domestic order book of INR 3.30 trillion, which I said is 54% of the overall order book as of June, comprises central government-sponsored orders of 14%, state government orders of 25%, orders coming from PSUs or state-owned corporations 34%, and private sector constituting the remaining 27%. 91% of our total order book is from infrastructure and energy. Similarly, 13% of the order book is funded by multilateral agencies. You may refer to the presentation slides for further details.
No orders have been deleted from the order book during this quarter. As of June 2025, the slow-moving orders constitute around 2% of the order book. Coming to revenues, the group revenues for Q1 FY 2026 at INR 637 billion registered a strong YoY growth of 16%. International revenues constituted 52% of the revenues during the quarter. The strong execution momentum in hydrocarbons, precision engineering and systems, and heavy engineering within the products and manufacturing portfolio drove the overall group revenues for the quarter. Within the overall group revenue, the revenues for products and manufacturing business for Q1 FY 2026 is INR 458 billion, up by 19% over the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Moving on to EBITDA margin, our group level EBITDA margin without other income for Q1 FY 2026 is 9.9% vis-à-vis 10.2% in Q1 of the previous year.
The decline in the EBITDA margin is primarily due to the change in the revenue mix, that is, a higher share of revenues coming from the products and manufacturing business portfolio. The detailed breakup of the EBITDA margin business-wise, including other income, is given in the annexures to the earnings presentation. You will notice that the EBITDA margin in the products and manufacturing business for Q1 FY 2026 is at 7.6% and is comparable or stable vis-à-vis Q1 of the previous year. I will cover the details a little later when I talk about the performance of each of the segments. Our reported PAT for Q1 FY 2026 is at INR 36 billion, which is up 30% over Q1 of last year. The strong growth in PAT is reflective of improved activity levels and efficient treasury management.
The group performance P&L construct, along with the reasons for major variances under the respective function heads, is provided in the earnings presentation. You can kindly go through the same for further details. Coming to working capital, our NWC to sales ratio has improved from 13.9% in June 2024 to 10.1% in June 2025, mainly due to an improvement in the GWC to sales ratio, again backed by strong customer collections during the past four quarters. Our group level collection, excluding the financial services segment for Q1 FY 2026, is INR 603 billion as compared to INR 459 billion in Q1 FY 2025, registering an increase of 31% on a YoY basis. On the back of a strong focus on customer collections, our cash flow from operations, excluding financial services for Q1 FY 2026, has been robust at INR 62 billion vis-à-vis an outflow of INR 14 billion in Q1 FY 2025.
We have added a slide on the group cash flows, excluding financial services in the annexure, alongside the reported cash flow slide at the group level to give more clarity on the cash flow performance, excluding of L&T Finance. Finally, the trailing 12-month ROE for Q1 FY 2026 is 17% vis-à-vis 14.7% in Q1 FY 2025, an improvement of around 230 basis points. Very briefly, I will now comment on the performance of each business segment before we give our final comments on guidance for FY 2026. First is infrastructure. Coming to order inflows, this segment secured orders of INR 410 billion for Q1 FY 2026, registering a growth of 2% on a YoY basis. International orders constituted 69% of the total order inflow. During the current quarter, the orders were mainly received in renewables, power transmission distribution, buildings and factories, as well as minerals and metals businesses.
Like I mentioned earlier, the order prospects pipeline for infra for the next nine months is at INR 7.97 trillion vis-à-vis INR 06.03 trillion during the same time last year, representing an increase of 32%. This prospects pipeline of INR 7.97 trillion comprises domestic prospects of INR 5.04 trillion and international prospects of INR 2.93 trillion. The subsegment breakup of total order prospects in the infrastructure segment is as follows. Transportation infra constitutes 19% of the total order prospects, heavy civil infrastructure 17%, water and effluent treatment 17%, power transmission distribution 14%, renewables 14%, buildings and factories 11%, and minerals and metals 8%. The order book for this segment is at INR 3.7 trillion as of June 2025. The book-to-bill for infra is around 29 months. Q1 revenues at INR 288 billion registered a growth of 7% over the comparable quarter of the previous year.
Our EBITDA margin in this segment was at 5.7% this quarter as compared to 5.8% in Q1 FY 2025. The infrastructure segment margin continues to remain a little soft due to higher cost pressures in some projects, especially led to the segment of water, mainly driven by time overruns culminating in prolonged project completion and consequent impact on the margin. Moving on to the next segment, energy projects, this comprises hydrocarbon, carbon light solutions, and the green and clean energy businesses. The green and clean energy business within the energy segment is in the incubation stage and is yet to meaningfully contribute to the segment numbers. During the quarter, the order inflows in this segment were robust at INR 314 billion as compared to INR 88 billion in Q1 FY 2025.
Hydrocarbon segment order inflows benefit from multiple onshore and offshore packages, while the receipt of multiple BTG packages improves the carbon light solutions order book. Whereas we have received the letter of award for the BTG packages during the quarter, we are yet to receive a formal client confirmation for announcing the details of the order. Moving on to prospects pipeline, we have a strong order prospects pipeline of INR 6.54 trillion for this energy segment for the remaining nine months, comprising hydrocarbon prospects of INR 5.78 trillion, carbon light solutions of INR 0.55 trillion, and the green and clean energy prospects of INR 0.21 trillion. The green and clean energy prospects comprise of INR 0.17 trillion of gas-to-power projects. Whereas carbon light solution prospects are largely domestic, around 95% of the hydrocarbon prospects as well as 81% of the green energy prospects are international.
The order book of this energy segment is at INR 1.86 trillion as of June 25. With the hydrocarbon order book at INR 1.37 trillion and carbon light solutions at INR 0.49 trillion. The Q1 FY 2026 revenues for this segment at INR 125 billion registers a robust growth of 47%, driven mainly by the execution ramp-up across domestic and international projects of hydrocarbon, whereas revenues in the carbon light solutions are reflective of early stages of the executable order book. The energy segment EBITDA margin in Q1 FY 2026 is at 7.3% as compared to 8.7% in Q1 FY 2025. The lower margin in hydrocarbon is primarily explained by an execution ramp-up in a couple of international jobs having competitive margins, and this mix may remain the same for FY 2026.
At this stage, we wish to inform that the hydrocarbon margin drift for Q1 is along budgeted lines, and the same has been baked in the P&M margin guidance for FY 2026 that we gave at the start of this year. We will now move on to high-tech manufacturing segment, which comprises the precision engineering systems and heavy engineering businesses. The lower order inflow in Q1 FY 2026 is due to order deferrals in the heavy engineering business and a high base of precision engineering orders in the previous year. The order book of this segment is at INR 392 billion as of June 25. The order prospects pipeline for the next nine months in this segment is around INR 303 billion, comprising INR 215 billion of precision engineering prospects, and the remaining INR 88 billion is from the heavy engineering business.
During the quarter, robust execution momentum was witnessed across both businesses. The lower margin in precision engineering is reflective of major jobs being in its early stages of execution, whereas operational efficiencies aided the margin improvement in the heavy engineering portfolio. Moving on to the next segment, IT and technology services, which comprises the two listed entities, LTI Mindtree and L&T Technology Services, and as well as the newly incubated businesses of digital platforms, data centers, and semiconductor design. The revenues of this segment at INR 126 billion in Q1 FY 2026 registers a growth of 10%, which is largely in line with the prevailing global macro environment. The segment margin variation vis-à-vis previous year is mainly explained by the cost incurred towards the newly incubated businesses.
I will not dwell too much on this segment as both the companies in the segment are listed entities, and the detailed fact sheets are already available in the public domain. We move on to L&T Finance Ltd. Here again, the detailed results are available in the public domain. Summing up, Q1 witnessed a strong retail disbursement continuity. The financial services business achieved 98% utilization of its loan book in June 2025, well ahead of its Lakshya 2026 targets. The ROAS remained healthy at 2.37 for Q1 FY 2026, and adequate capital is available in the balance sheet to pursue growth in the near term. Moving to the development project segment, this segment includes the power development business comprising of Naba Power and Hyderabad Metro. A bulk of the revenues in the segment are contributed by Naba Power.
The lower PLF in the current quarter impacted revenue and margin in Naba, whereas fare hikes during the quarter led to revenue and margin improvement in Hyderabad Metro. The average fare per passenger has increased from INR 38 in Q1 FY 2025 to INR 43 in Q1 FY 2026. The average ridership during the quarter was at INR 4.17 lakh passengers per day as compared to 4.32 lakh passengers per day in the same period of the previous year. The Hyderabad Metro, at a PAT level, posted a loss of INR 2.08 billion in Q1 FY 2026 as compared to a loss of INR 2.14 billion in Q1 FY 2025. Moving on to the other segment, this segment comprises realty, industrial valves, construction equipment and mining machinery, rubber processing machinery, and a residual portion of our smart world and communications business.
The Q1 revenue grew by 1% over the corresponding quarter of the previous year, mainly contributed by a higher handover of residential units in the realty business, whereas lower machinery sales impacted the industrial machinery and products performance. The segment margin improvement was primarily due to a higher EBITDA contribution on an absolute basis from the realty business and a favorable sales mix in the industrial machinery and product segment. Before we conclude, let me cover the guidance on the various parameters for FY 2026 that we detailed out in the earnings call for Q4 and last year in the month of May 2025. Our guidance for FY 2026 remains unchanged. We expect our group order inflows and group revenues to grow at 10% and 15% respectively for FY 2026. Our net working capital to revenue guidance for March 2026 remains at 12%.
With respect to the margin in the products and manufacturing portfolio, we continue to target the 8.3%-8.5% range for the full year FY 2026. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the patient listening. With this, I conclude. My summary of the Q1 performance of L&T, and now we can start the 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 then one on the attestation phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star then 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. Our first question comes from the line of Mohit Kumar from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, sir, and thanks for the opportunity. Congratulations on a very good quarter. My first question is, sir, on the order inflow in this quarter. I just want a clarification. Have you booked this ultra-major order which we announced today? Also, another clarification, have you booked the internal green hydrogen KTPA order inflow during the quarter?
Mohit, can you repeat the second question?
Second question, there was L&T executing one 10,000-ton green hydrogen, right? So have you booked any order related to the internal green hydrogen project?
Okay. The answer to the second question is a no, and the answer to the first question is also a repeat no.
Okay, sir. My second question is on the domestic BTG orders which you received in this quarter. Is it pertaining to one particular customer, or is it from more than one customer?
The order has been received from an independent power producer.
Understood, sir. My last question, sir, are the international prospects moving as expected hydrocarbon, or are they having some major shift? I'm asking this question because the hydrocarbon prospect has declined from INR 7.5 trillion to INR 5.8 trillion on a Q4 Q basis in hydrocarbon.
Okay. The hydrocarbon prospects pipeline, I think more or less has been, as per our own, I would say, understanding. I would also like to point out, and it is available in the public domain, there has been a significant amount of ordering that has accrued in the Middle East with respect to hydrocarbon projects. As of March, we had given the order prospects pipeline at INR 7.5 trillion, and now as of June, it is at INR 5.8 trillion, is what I communicated. The drop is INR 1.7 trillion, and out of which we have received almost, I would say, $9 billion worth of orders. 80,000 crores, sorry. 80,000 crores, 800 billion. 8,000. Sorry, sorry. [crosstalk] dollars.
Understood, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Understood.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sumit Kishore from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is related to your core business margin guidance. Is there a slight change from the 8.5% guidance that you had given for FY 2026, an increase of 20 basis points to 8.3%-8.5%, or there is no change?
There is no change, Sumit. If you recall, on the 8th of May, what we spoke about that we are targeting an improvement of 20 basis points, and I still want to maintain that we will be in that range of 8.3%-8.5%.
Got it. Sir, can you segregate the impact of the competitively priced jobs in hydrocarbon on margin for the segment, along with the stage of execution of jobs, which was attributed as one of the reasons where you had not crossed margin recognition threshold in large jobs as the reason why hydrocarbon margins had declined in FY 2025? Also, with your comment that your Q1 margin for hydrocarbon was on expected line and is baked into margin guidance for FY 2026, is that something we should be extrapolating as Q1 margin for hydrocarbon being the new normal for fiscal, or is this likely to evolve through the fiscal?
Okay, Sumit, when we gave the guidance of 8% points, the target of 8 % points for FY 2026, I did mention in the call that the first two quarters could be the margins in the P&M portfolio would be a little subdued. Now, subdued means in this instant case, the margins have been stable, like of the entire portfolio of 7.6% as compared to, again, 7.6% in the Q1 of the previous year. Now, when we gave this guidance, it is based on the fact that the mapping of the projects in the hydrocarbon segment, the way it will plan out in the current year, has been considered in the overall 8.3%.
So the 7.6% that we have printed for Q1 factors this overall progress of execution of the jobs which were a little competitive price that were awarded in the earlier part, maybe two or three years back, and which has gone into, which is in the current year, into full execution.
Okay. Can you please explain the competitively based price jobs having impact on margins in Q1, along with stage of execution of jobs?
The progress of jobs, as I mentioned, the jobs that we secured in 2021, 2022, they are going into peak execution in the current year. The hydrocarbon margins is reflective of those progress of execution and in a way that is factored in our overall P&M guidance of 8.3%.
Okay. 8.3%-8.5%?
8.3%-8.5%. Correct.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Aditya Bhartia from Investec. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, Priya
Good evening.
My first question is on the merger between SubT7 and Saipim that we are kind of hearing about. I understand that we used to have the LTA contract also with SubT7. I just wanted to understand if it can have any implications for us, how should we see that?
Whatever contracts that we have, along with the counterparty you mentioned, will be as per the plan. There will not be any impact.
Understood, sir. How does it go from here on? Do we also need to renew our LTA contract with Saudi Aramco?
The discussions are happening, and I think in due course of time, we'll keep you informed on the progress.
Perfect, sir. That's helpful. My last question is on Naba Power. There have been some media articles about the project likely to be sold to Torrent. Just wanted to understand if there's anything that you'd like to add to that.
If you also want to ask the media whether, same question, we need to ask the media only. Let me tell you that as part of our overall, which we have been mentioning, that we keep on evaluating all strategic opportunities. At this juncture, there is nothing we are able to disclose or anything to test. No comments further.
Sure, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Atul Tiwari from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Thanks a lot, and congrats on a very strong quarter. Yet again. Two questions. One is on the private sector order book in the domestic orders. I believe the proportion has increased to now 27%. Is all of it being driven by power BTG orders only, or are you seeing some uptick in activity from any other sector on the private side?
Okay. So optically, yes, that private sector BTG orders have actually moved the needle. Let me also tell you, we are seeing substantial traction in the construction side of the segment, especially with respect to the buildings and factories where multiple opportunities are coming from the pure commercial real estate, data centers, hospitals being put up by the private sector, and a couple of minerals and metals opportunities as well. The only thing is, large-scale industrial opportunities or investments are yet to happen. Definitely, the mood or the sentiment is far more positive than what it was possibly in June 2024.
Okay. Good to hear, sir. The second question is on other segments' margin. There is quite a bit of an increase from 23% to 33%. Anything specific to call out here, or?
No. Let me tell you that real estate margins get clocked in or revenues get clocked in only on flat or none of us. To that extent, you can have some quarterly variations in this segment because of the reporting, I would say, constraints in the real estate business.
Okay. Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Amit Anwani from PL Capital. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. First question on the Hyderabad Metro. You did talk about a 30% share increase, and the average share has gone up from 38 to 43, almost by 12%-13%. On the other side, I think, if I'm right, the ridership has gone down to 417,000 YoY. This number has been kind of consistently there for the past seven-eight quarters, barring one or two quarters when we did a higher number. Just wanted to understand how one should think of, with respect to break-even in Hyderabad Metro, about ridership as well. Earlier, we did talk about the refinancing two-three years back, considering that INR 1,400 crore had just caused INR 3,400 crore of depreciation. How should one think with respect to break-even for Hyderabad Metro?
Okay. Thanks, Amit. Okay. Let me give you a broad construct. For the Hyderabad Metro ridership, which was averaging at 4.32% Q1 last year, and it was, again, 4.31% in Q4 of the last year. It has dropped to 4.17% primarily because of the fare increase. We do believe that this is temporary because, at the end of the day, the fare increase of roughly INR 5 from 38 averaged to 43% after taking that 10% discount to the 30% increase that we had. I think it is a question of time when the ridership will again start inching back to 4.4%-4.5% levels. Now, the ridership revenue on Q1 of last year at 4.32% with average 38%, the revenue metro fare ridership was around INR 150 lakh crores.
Now, despite a lower ridership at 4.17% for the current quarter, but with an additional increase of INR 5 in the fare, the revenues have actually gone up by another INR 13 crores , plus INR 163 crores . The EBITDA for Hyderabad Metro was INR 101 crores previous year, Q1 previous year. Now it is at INR 112 crores Q1 of the current year. The average depreciation amortization ranges between INR 750 crores -INR 760 crores per quarter. At the current level of roughly INR 125 crores of debt, the metro interest, the Hyderabad Metro interest, averages around INR 242 crores -INR 250 crores . That is how the overall construct, when I gave you the numbers, that the loss has been consolidated in L&T books at INR 208 crores in Q1 of the current year as compared to INR 214 crores of Q1 of the previous year.
Now, coming back to overall, I would say, PBT break-even, I guess this has been also communicated last time that the ridership should be going around 700,000 ridership per day. The debt levels, which is today around INR 12000 crores , has to be brought down to INR 8000 crores . The plan to reduce the debt levels from INR 12000 crores to INR 8000 crores is a combination of two things. We are yet to get around INR 2100 crores of the state government, free, I would say, interest-free loan assistance, and also TOD monetization we expect to happen over the near term, which will give us another INR 1500 crores -INR 2000 crores . If we are to do with the current levels of debt at INR 12000 crores , the break-even ridership, I think, is too high. That is almost at 12 lakh passengers per day.
Understood, sir. Second question on the prospect, the Middle East prospect. For the remaining nine months, if you can highlight now what kind of projects which are there in the pipeline, whether it is more of hydrocarbon, renewable, or L&T terminal, or there's some color with respect to the proportion of orders in the Middle East market. Second is that for the past two years, there's been the international dominance with respect to order inflow and domestic has been relatively kind of not growing with respect to prospect. Some color, are we seeing any large-scale buildup of domestic order prospect? Not this year, maybe with medium to longer-term perspective since election and all the major events are over. Some color on when are we expecting that the domestic pipeline will also show strong strength? Yeah.
Okay. Let me take the second question first. I think the domestic prospects pipeline has been quite robust. It's not that. It is, but when it is compared to the movement of L&T's international prospects pipeline, I think that is the way it seems to be relatively coming off. We do see a strong set of public spends happening. I just responded to a previous question. The private sector in some of the segments is actually driving a lot of CapEx spend, and we expect the momentum to continue. Coming to the international prospects pipeline, as I mentioned, of the infra segment, the total prospects pipeline of INR 7.96 trillion, the international prospects aggregate to almost INR 2.93 trillion, largely led by renewables, power transmission distribution, and some amounts of almost INR 0.2-0.3 trillion across the other infrastructure segments. That's the way I'll put it across.
Coming to hydrocarbon, total order prospects for the nine months, I did communicate at INR 5.78 trillion, out of which I would say INR 5.51 trillion itself is international. Again, here again, I would say 70%-80% coming from the Middle East, comprising of a major portion coming from offshore and onshore. Besides this, this INR 5.51 trillion of international prospects also includes offshore wind at INR 1.31 trillion, which is not necessarily Middle East, sir.
Understood. Thank you, sir. Thanks for taking my question.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Vinod Chari from Philip Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity, Priya. Your order book has now crossed INR 6 lakh crore. I just wanted to understand, is there a peak order book that you look at internally beyond which execution begins to get cumbersome? Any specific number that you have in mind on the order book?
A good question, but it is a good challenge to deal with, Vinod. Okay? Let me put it like this. I think it's not proper of me to communicate or say that the threshold is INR 7 lakh crore or INR 8 lakh crore for L&T. It does not work that way because we have to see the capacity available across the multiple segments that we have. It is constrained by those areas. Obviously, as we keep looking at the prospects pipeline, and if we find that the prospects pipeline of a particular subsegment continues to be quite strong, L&T has always been building up capacities in advance to address these prospects.
Sure. Thanks, Priya. The second question I had was on your E2E acquisition. Do you plan to treat it as a standalone asset, or will it be like a building block for our infrastructure solutions? Because a lot of global engineering companies are moving towards such kind of operations. What is our take on this?
The E2E acquisition has been done primarily to complement our start into the data center business. It should not be considered as if L&T is doing a standalone acquisition. It is a complement because instead of trying to organically build up the practices for ensuring better data center offerings, we have decided to partner with E2E. We will take their, we leverage their competencies while we address, I would say, a more tech-focused data center solutions to Indian clients. We thought that it would be better to do that. To ensure that it is complementary and it is working as a collaboration, both the companies decided that we will take up a strategic investment. As we speak now, we hold 19% in the equity stake of that company.
Sure. Can I ask you one small question more, Priya, if you would permit me?
Yes, please.
Yeah. We have now started seeing some amount of retrenchment happening in IT services. Our long-term complaint has always been lack of engineers because most engineers want to go into IT. Now do you see manpower supply structurally improving for capital goods companies or industrial companies, particularly for manufacturing?
Okay. I think what I would say is, of course, we have challenges in terms of building up appropriate technical skills within the company to address the growth momentum that we are seeing both in India and abroad. That has been there. With some amount of headwinds, if you hear about the recent news articles, if that's the way to conclude, I think it is premature. Let me tell you, both within the entire group, because as a group, we are also looking at engineers which deliver solutions in our basic projects and manufacturing portfolio, and also addressing the requirements of IT and technology services companies.
I think L&T is spending a lot of, I would say, significant amount of investments to ensure that all our engineering talent are in a position to either get built in the IT services domain or get deployed in the very projects that we are executing in the projects part of the segment.
Sure. Thanks, P.R. Thanks for the response. I'll come back in a bit.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pulkit Patni from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Sir, thank you for taking my question. I had just one bookkeeping question. When I look at your presentation. The corporate EBITDA is a very large number. This summary is at INR 520 crore. Historically, this number has been in the INR 125-150, 160 crore range. Anything exceptional that's included there?
It is largely treasury income arising out of better yields. That's what I was talking about, better efficient funds management, both at the impairment at L&T because these two companies have a substantial amount of temporary surplus, cash surplus. It is because of a higher quantum of temporary surplus deployed and better yields that you have almost, I think the entire other income has moved up by almost INR 400 crore in the standalone, INR 200 crore and INR 200 crore across the other entities.
Sure, sir. Yeah. Because it's 25% of our core PAT, so I was wondering. Great. Thank you. That's it from my side, P.R. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sriyom Kapoor from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just wanted to, just a bookkeeping question. Could you break up your overall domestic versus international prospect pipeline for the balance nine months?
No. I didn't get you.
The.
I think this one I covered. Okay. Let me put it like this. I gave a total order prospects of INR 14.81 trillion at the P&M level. The domestic prospects pipeline aggregated to INR 6.13 trillion and international INR 8.68 trillion. Okay?
Got it.
Did I answer your question?
Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted the overall breakup. If you have any further breakdown of that.
No. I think I gave it to you, Shirom, while I covered each segment. I gave the order prospects where I gave a breakup of domestic and international. This was just to address the total order prospects of [audio distortion] , which I said at the start of the call, broken up into INR 6.13 trillion for domestic and international INR 8.68 trillion. Since I addressed international INR 8.68 trillion a little time back, I'll give you the segment-wise breakup of domestic. Infra contributes to INR 5.03 trillion domestic. Hydrocarbon is INR 0.26 trillion domestic. Carbon light is INR 0.55 trillion domestic. Both the high-tech manufacturing segment of HED and precision engineering segments, INR 0.24 trillion. Green and green energy around INR 0.04 trillion. That adds up to INR 6.13 trillion.
Noted. Thank you so much for that breakup. And just another question. I know you addressed that you're seeing certain on the private side, your CapEx picking up in certain segments. But is that going to be primarily your driver of domestic order flow going forward? Just basically want to understand the on-ground reality of the overall macro environment in India and how CapEx is shaping up there.
Okay. In the near term, if we take a domestic order inflow as , I think even for the current year, we can expect the share of government, state center plus public sector corporations to be in the range of 75% and private to be 25%. Sometimes there can be variations because one important thing which has come up in the private sector is the private sector coming to invest into the coal-based power plant opportunities. Any further order wins could potentially tilt the ratios maybe for that quarter, for that period. Structurally, we seem to be, India is still, as we see it, will continue to be led by government ordering, which is almost 75%.
Great. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Aditya Mongia from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Good evening, everyone, and thanks for the opportunity. Priya, the question that I had was more on your unchanged guidance for working capital. Now we've seen 12% become 11% the last two years, and the guidance is for 12% again. It doesn't carry well with the cash flows that you were trying to kind of highlight in the first quarter, wherein net CFO positive number versus an outflow last year. Just trying to get a sense of why has the guidance as of now been maintained at 12% versus 11% year on year, wherein such large moves are happening on collections?
Okay. Aditya, the collections, in fact, for the last, I would say, almost two years across eight to ten quarters, I think the company has been doing really well, partly because of timely execution, timely billing, and customers also making payments on time. Also, part of the orders are getting executed through international orders where the payment terms are a little better as compared to domestic orders. Having said this, we gave the guidance in the month of May at 12% for the full year. We are just in the month of July. We just completed the first quarter. First quarter has been good. At this juncture, we would like to maintain the guidance of 12%.
Hopefully, by the close of the year, maybe when we close out the results for October or possibly as late as even Q3, we will see at that point of time whether we need to upgrade this guidance to a better level.
Understood. The second question that I had was, I'm just trying to kind of gauge the hit rates in domestic and international in Q1. It seems that the hit rates in international appear to be a bit on the lower side, low double digits, whereas the hit rates in domestic are larger. Just trying to get a sense whether there is more keen competition that is now being visible on the international side of things and how to think through the hit rates incrementing line that remains there on the international side.
Aditya, you cannot ask hit rate basis one particular, I would say, quarter, okay? Because it is possible that if you get one large contract in one particular quarter, it will improve the hit rate, relatively speaking. I think it is more a statistical data point for a quarter. Structurally, I think we can talk about, when we talk about order prospects at the start of the year, the hit rate in a reasonably modest year ranges between 20%-25%. On a very good year, it can be 25%. On average, if you see L&T's numbers of the last five years, the order inflows that we have reported for the end of the year as compared to the order prospects for the start of the year, the hit rate has been ranging between 18%-25%.
Understood. The last question that I had was on this division into onshore and offshore in the energy portfolio. Now you gave some talent on offshore wind, but if you have to kind of classify onshore and offshore as portfolios within the energy segment, how would you compare them in terms of comparative intensity and risks and, let's say, so-called hit rates given L&T's capabilities here?
Okay. The competition in the first and foremost, the reason to create two separate verticals inside the company under hydrocarbons was primarily to give increased focus because both the type of jobs has been rewarding as well in terms of good amount of order inflows and also the prospects of continuing spend in those segments by the oil majors, largely in the Middle East. That was one of the reasons we created that. It also builds up a better connect with the client ecosystem because the client ecosystem also has a separate project management team for both onshore and offshore. It is just to ensure that we try to better connect it and build up focused expertise. I think that's the way we are looking at. Because of the size of the opportunities in both the segments continue to be robust, that was the reason that we have done this.
I didn't get the second part of your question.
Yeah. Just trying to get a sense that since offshore is a new area of work, should we be, and we know less of the competitive intensity, should we be assuming similar hit rates or how to think through that? The risks associated with the same, yeah, just in terms of business risk.
Aditya, let me clarify. Offshore is not a new area for Larsen & Toubro. We have been doing a lot of platforms in the offshore, especially with many of the Indian corporates, you know whom I am referring to. It's not a new, I would say, expertise that we have built up. The only thing is that a large part of these opportunities are now coming from the Middle East in this area. Okay? Also, I would like to tell you that there are fewer companies which are common as competition in both the segments. If you really ask me what we see common in both the segments, it will be five or six companies from a number perspective which cater to both onshore and offshore.
Understood. That answers my question very well. Thank you, Priya, for your response. Those are my questions.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Parikshit Kandpal from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Priya. Congratulations on a great quarter. My first question is on the order backlog of ₹6.13 trillion now. Right, the inflows have been strong. Order backlog growth is strong, but still the revenues are not catching up. If you can give us some color on the last two years' order inflow, how the book-to-bill is behaving, is it shortening, elongating, and whether it will catch up in growth in coming quarters?
Apart from one or two segments, I would say that the execution momentum in most of the segments has been in line with the stipulated terms and conditions under the contract. We have not seen any slowdown. Likely, I did convey this in the May call, that some amount of slowdown was witnessed in the water and effluent part of the treatment part of the business, primarily because of the fund allocations drop or, I would say, scarcity of fund availability under the Jal Jeevan mission projects. I think barring for one or two segments in the overall P&M portfolio, the rest of the execution is happening at its planned trajectory.
Is there any elongation in book-to-bill for the new orders?
No. I think the overall.
Much lower than the order inflow or order book growth. I mean.
Let me.
I think I would say that it's roughly ranging between 29 months to three years. I think that's the average book-to-bill. We are not seeing any specific barring for the segment that I referred to. We are not seeing any sort of headwinds that prevent the execution. They are as per planned schedule.
Okay. Our second question was on NWC to pay. Last quarter, you alluded that because of JJ and the, if the payments would have come on time, the NWC should have been better. Do you think this quarter is reflective of the collection, or do you think that still the outstanding would have been recovered up to your expectation, the NWC would have been much better versus what you've reported?
Okay. Let me tell you, of course, the Jal Jeevan projects, some amount of funding has resumed, but I don't think it has come down to complete normalcy. We do see some amount of, I would say, fund-related constraints in some of the states where the Jal Jeevan mission projects are getting executed. If you really ask me, the overall net working capital of the P&M segment today is at almost 8.5%. Now, if I just exclude water as a segment, there can be a further improvement of almost 75 basis points.
Okay. So you have still some headroom. Question if you will come in on time. Okay. Just one question. Yeah. Lastly, one question on the real estate side. What has been the order booking of the pieces this quarter? As a year as a whole, how are you looking at this? What kind of capital allocation are you looking at? Because this segment seems to be promising, but it gets hidden in your SOTP or your overall business. How are you thinking about this more on a longer term, mid to longer term?
Okay. For the realty business, the order inflow for the quarter was around INR 1,000 crore, and the revenue was around INR 500 crore. In terms of the overall perspective, in terms of residential units that we have launched, it is around 13,000 units, out of which handed over is 6,200. Sold but yet to be handed over is around 5,000, and we have unsold inventory around 1,700.
More on the longer term, how do you think this order book of ₹1,000? I mean, we have heard in the press that this number can significantly multiply over the years, but internally, how do you think, analyze this as ₹5,000-₹6,000 of pre-sales if they are going up to ₹10,000-₹12,000 in the next two years? How do you think about this segment?
Okay. As far as the real estate business is concerned, we are focusing on a lot of real estate developments, primarily in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, and NCR region. Today, many of the launches have been through own-land monetization and also some sort of joint development agreements. We are also looking to expand this portfolio meaningfully by getting into some amount of land acquisitions. At this juncture, it is premature for me to give a number to it because this whole thing about real estate business will be covered in detail when we frame out our strat plan exercise for FY 2026 -FY 2027 - FY 2031.
Okay. Yeah. Just one thing. On labor issues, there has been noise around the shortage of labor. Some of the other peers have been talking about it. Any challenge there, whether it had any impact in this quarter or a year as a whole? I mean, whether it could have any impact? How are you placing yourself or basing yourself to make good this opportunity for growth?
Okay. So in terms of, yes, the labor availability, let me tell you, the concept of, I would say, or the issue is not exactly of labor availability. The issue is of the churn within a year. Which means, practically speaking, if we are talking about in Indian projects, we have almost 400,000 of labor working across the multiple sites. What we are seeing as a phenomenon is every three months, the entire churn portfolio happens. To some extent, retraining costs and bringing a new set of people has an impact, but we are also finding our ways and means of having more of pre-engineered structures and take it directly to the site.
I guess this is a structural issue for the country, and we are trying our level best to overcome it by doing most of the work in situ location, doing it in the factory level and take it directly to the site. Better construction methods are being deployed. Hopefully, I think we should be in a position to improve the execution ramp up further in the future.
Sure, Priya. Thank you. Those are my questions. Wish you the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. If there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to Mr. P. Ramakrishnan for closing comments.
Thank you, everyone, for attending this call. It was our pleasure to interact with all of you. Good luck and wishing you all the very best. Thank you.
Thank you so much, sir. On behalf of Larsen & Toubro, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.