Ladies and gentlemen, good evening, and welcome to Larsen & Toubro Limited Q4 FY 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there'll be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this 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 from Larsen & Toubro. Thank you, and over to Mr. Ramakrishnan.
Hi. Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Very warm welcome to all of you to the Q4 FY 2026 earnings call of Larsen & Toubro. The earnings presentation was uploaded on the stock exchange and on our website around 6:20 P.M. I hope you have had a chance to take a quick look at the numbers and the presentation details. I will first walk you through the important highlights for Q4 FY 2026 and the full-year FY 2026, followed by an overview of our strategic plan for the next five years. That is Lakshya 2031. After which we will take questions. Kindly note that when the Q&A session starts, I will also have with me our Deputy Managing Director and President, Subramanian Sarma, and our President Whole-time Director and CFO, R. Shankar Raman.
Before I begin the overview, the important disclaimer from our end. The presentation which we have uploaded on the stock exchange and our website today, including the discussions, we may have on the call today, may contain certain forward-looking statements concerning our 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 would request you to go through the detailed disclaimer which is available in slide two of our earnings presentation, which was uploaded earlier today. I'll start with a brief overview of economic conditions in India and in the Middle East, the two primary geographies for our projects and manufacturing business, along with a qualitative update on our business operations.
The economic growth in India for FY 2027 is expected to be around 6.9%, supported by resilient household demand, sustained public CapEx, and continued strength in the services sector. Growth conditions, however, remain subject to external headwinds, including geopolitical developments, global energy supply dynamics, softer external demand, and periods of financial market volatility. The headline inflation is expected to remain below 5%, staying within the medium-term comfort range. The inflation dynamics may nonetheless be influenced by pressures from elevated energy prices, higher logistic costs, and the volatility in the global commodity markets. Weather-related uncertainties, including the possibility of El Niño conditions, could also affect agricultural output and food price trends. Persistently high fuel prices may have implications for fiscal calibration over the medium term.
Nonetheless, the domestic economy remains supported by sound macroeconomic fundamentals, with steady demand providing resilience even as growth becomes sensitive to external and climate-related influences. Across the Middle East, the economic impact of the ongoing conflict in West Asia can be viewed across immediate and medium-term horizons. In the near term, disruptions to energy production and exports, constraints on key trade routes, and a weakening in confidence have weighed on economic activity across the region. Despite these pressures, the GCC has demonstrated resilience underpinned by low public debt levels, substantial foreign exchange reserves, and strong sovereign balance sheets that have helped preserve currency stability, banking sector soundness, and fiscal discipline. In the medium term, assuming an improvement in geopolitical conditions, as far as reform initiatives gather pace, the region's underlying growth potential remains intact.
While global economic fragmentation continues to influence trade flows, investment activity, and overall sentiment, the Middle East structural strengths and reform momentum provide a constructive foundation for medium-term growth. Against this broader regional backdrop, let me now update you within our operations in the Middle East. On the Middle East situation, we would like to clarify that all our project sites are functioning as of date. All our employees and workflows are safe, and none of our projects have been canceled. The Middle East remains a strategically significant market for Larsen & Toubro, and as of 31st March 2026, we have an order book of almost INR 3 trillion coming from the region. While we do anticipate some near-term impact on execution, primarily due to supply chain constraints, we are working closely with our clients on alternate routes and logistic arrangements to ensure minimal disruption.
We largely operate with the government-owned clients on priority national projects, and our clients have been extremely supportive throughout this period. So far, we have not seen any project cancellations, and the payments from clients continue to be received as per schedule. While we did observe some deferments in project awards during the period when the conflict was most active. The bidding activity since then has resumed, and we do not foresee cancellations of projects in which we are actively participating. In terms of input costs, the most significant impact has been in logistics and insurance, which have increased materially. We engage in active discussions with the clients to seek appropriate relief for such costs. Having covered the macro landscape and also having provided an update on the Middle East, I would like to now share a few key highlights for the quarter and for the year.
We start with infrastructure. We witnessed strong ordering traction across both domestic and international markets during the year. On the domestic front, we witnessed strong momentum in the private sector ordering across our buildings and factories, minerals and metals, and heavy civil infrastructure businesses. Internationally, we benefited from ongoing opportunities in energy transition and core national infrastructure projects in the Middle East, while our expansion initiatives in Central Asia progressed steadily. I come to energy now. In FY 2026, the energy segment secured multiple high-value orders across onshore, offshore, carbon light solutions and offshore wind. The wind spanned across Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and India in the hydrocarbon space, while carbon light orders were largely domestic private sector-driven.
During the year, the company achieved a major milestone in its offshore wind business by securing a critical role in the prestigious HVDC offshore wind program of TenneT, the Dutch German transmission system operator. These multiple high-value orders enabled the energy segment total order inflow to cross INR 1 trillion for the first time on an annual basis. I now go to high-tech manufacturing. This business focused on strategic partnerships to enhance the technical and commercial depth across the Precision Engineering and Systems and the heavy engineering businesses. The key initiatives included a consortium with Bharat Electronics for the AMCA program, a partnership with General Atomics to manufacture medium altitude, long endurance, drones in India, and an MOU with Holtec International Asia for advanced heat transfer solutions for nuclear and thermal power applications. I now come to the IT and technology services domain.
The data center business rebranded as Larsen & Toubro Vyoma advanced its growth agenda by commissioning the 12 MW capacity at Kanchipuram with an additional 6 MW at an advanced stage of commissioning, bringing the total capacity available to 30 MW, positioning the platform to drive L&T's hyperscale data center expansion, catering to high-performance computing and advanced data storage requirements. L&T Semiconductor Technologies strengthened its power module design capabilities through an acquisition during the year. I come to financial services. In July 2025, L&T Finance received its debut international investment grade ratings from S&P Global and Fitch. In Q1 FY 2026, it also expanded into gold loans business through an inorganic route. I come to development projects.
In line with the Lakshya 2026 objectives, that's the period between FY 2022 and FY 2026, L&T has made significant progress in its planned exit of the concessions portfolio. The company has executed a share purchase agreement to divest its 100% stake in Nabha Power and its entire stake in Hyderabad Metro. Both these transactions are expected to achieve closure in Q1 FY 2027. Coming to L&T Realty. For the year, the primary focus of the Realty business was to create a simplified and scalable structure through consolidation of all the group real estate undertakings under a single platform. Accordingly, the company initiated the transfer of its Realty business undertaking to L&T Realty Properties, a wholly owned subsidiary, through a slump sale under an approved NCLT scheme of arrangement.
In addition, the Realty business has also more than doubled its pre-sales to INR 94 billion in FY 2026, aided by successful launches in Noida and Panvel. I come to ESG side of the company. The company's MSCI ESG rating was upgraded from triple B to A in November 2025. The company was also ranked second among the top 200 environment firms globally in the 2025 list published by the New York-based Engineering News-Record. On the financing front, L&T became the first Indian corporate to issue an ESG bond under SEBI's sustainability-linked bond framework, aligned with its commitments to water neutrality by 2035 and carbon neutrality by 2040. The company also secured a $700 million sustainability-linked trade finance facility from a commercial bank. With the pricing linked to key ESG KPIs, including greenhouse gas emission intensity and freshwater withdrawal.
I will cover the financial highlights for FY 2026. On order inflows, we had guided for a growth of 10% for FY 2026 at the start of the year. I'm pleased to share that we have significantly surpassed this guidance, driven by strong order wins across multiple sectors. These include several ultra-mega orders spanning hydrocarbon onshore and offshore wind, carbon-light solutions, renewables, and heavy civil infrastructure, reflecting the strength and diversity of our EPC projects portfolio. On the revenue front, growth for FY 2026 stood at 12% compared to our guidance of 15%. The variance was primarily attributable to subdued execution progress in certain domestic projects, more particularly within the water and effluent treatment business, as well as delays arising from pending clearances on a few projects.
In addition, progress on some domestic and international projects were also impacted in the month of March 2026, which is typically a peak execution period for our business, because of the disruptions arising from the West Asia conflict. We wish to inform that with respect to the water projects, we have seen an improvement in collections during Q4. We are hopeful that this trend will sustain with the execution momentum improving as we move into FY 2027. Importantly, some of the previously delayed approvals and clearances are expected to come through, which should also support improved execution going forward. On margins, we had guided for an improvement of 20 basis points in FY 2026. Through the first nine months of the year, we were tracking ahead of this guidance, with P&M margins improving by 30 basis points.
However, execution-related disruptions during March had a short-term impact on project performance, which weighed on the margin delivery in Q4. On our return on equity of, as of March 31st, 2026, stood at 15.5% and declined by 80 basis points on a year-over-year basis. Please note that the return on equity includes an impact of 110 basis points arising from a one-time provision on account of changes in the labor code. We will now cover the various financial performance parameters for the quarter ended March 31st, 2026. Order inflows in Q4 FY 2026 stood at INR 898 billion, broadly in line with Q4 FY 2025 levels, supported by healthy traction across both domestic and international markets.
With this sustained ordering momentum, our order book stands at INR 7.40 trillion as of March 2026, a 28% year-over-year increase and providing a strong revenue visibility. The group revenues grew 11% year-over-year, led by steady progress across major projects despite the impact of the West Asia situation. The projects and manufacturing portfolio margin declined by 50 basis points year-over-year to 9.4% and is largely reflective of the change in the revenue mix. As of March 2026, the net working capital to revenue ratio improved sharply to 4.1%, reflecting a improvement of 690 basis points year-over-year basis. Our recurring PAT at INR 53 billion reported a growth of 5% year-over-year.
The reported PAT for Q4 FY 2026 is at INR 53 billion and is down by 3% Y-on-Y as the previous year had an exceptional one-off due to a part reversal of an earlier impairment provision. I now move on to individual performance parameters. During the quarter, our group order inflows stood at INR 898 billion, broadly in line with our previous year, driven by the sustained traction in the international business. Within this, our projects and manufacturing portfolio reported an order inflow of INR 699 billion, down 3% Y-on-Y. During the current quarter, international orders accounted for 67% of the projects and manufacturing portfolio, compared to 71% in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Moving on to prospects pipeline.
Our prospects pipeline for FY 2027 is INR 17.8 trillion as compared to INR 19.02 trillion at the same time last year, reflecting a decline of 6%. Of the total prospects pipeline of INR 17.8 trillion, INR 9.1 trillion is domestic, while INR 8.7 trillion is international. I will provide the details of the prospects when I cover the Lakshya 2031 since there are certain changes in the way our segments will start getting reported from the next financial year. Moving on to order book. The order book is at INR 7.40 trillion as of March 2026, up by 28% vis-a-vis March 2025.
In terms of composition, approximately 92% of our total board order book is from infrastructure and energy, while in terms of geography, 48% of the order book is from the domestic market, while 52% from international markets. The breakdown of the domestic order book of INR 3.58 trillion as of March 2026, is as follows: Central government share is 9%, state government and local authorities 22%, public sector corporation or state-owned enterprises at 30%, and the private sector taking up 39%.
It is worth highlighting that the private sector share has risen meaningfully from 21% in March 2025 to 39% in March 2026, supported by strong traction in the thermal power sector, storage solutions, residential and commercial real estate, semiconductor fabrication facilities, data centers, solar EPC projects, and emerging opportunities for building capacities in the ferrous and non-ferrous space. Out of the international order book of INR 3.82 trillion, around 78% is from Middle East and 22% is from the rest of the world. With respect to additional details on our order book, around 9% of the total order book is funded via bilateral and multilateral agencies. As of March 2026, slow-moving orders constitute roughly 1% of the overall order book, and INR 170 billion worth of orders were deleted from the order book during the quarter.
Further details are available in the accompanying presentation slides. Coming to revenues, our group revenues for Q4 FY 2026 was INR 828 billion and registered a year-on-year growth of 11% with international revenues constituting 53% of the total group revenues during the quarter. The revenue growth was mainly driven by high-tech manufacturing, energy and financial services segments, partly offset by subdued progress in the infrastructure segment. The revenue from the projects and manufacturing business in Q4 FY 2026 is INR 628 billion, up 11% over the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Moving on to operating margin, our group level EBITDA margin, excluding other income for Q4 FY 2026 is 10.4% as compared to 11% in Q4 of the previous year.
The decline in EBITDA margin is largely reflective of the revenue mix, as the previous year Q4 had higher revenue contribution from realty. Also, the previous year margin included the TOD monetization gain in Hyderabad Metro. The EBITDA margin in the projects and manufacturing business for Q4 FY 2026 is at 9.4% and has declined by 50 basis points from 9.9% in Q4 FY 2025. Our recurring PAT for Q4 FY 2026 is at INR 53 billion, up by 5% on a Y-on-Y basis. The increase in recurring PAT is reflective of increase in the activity levels and treasury management, partly offset by losses in carbon light solutions, JVs. The reported PAT for Q4 FY 2026 is at INR 53 billion, down by 3% over Q4 of last year.
The Q4 FY 2026 exceptional items, including part reversal of labor court provision. Q4 FY 2025 represents the partial reversal of an earlier impairment. The group performance, the P&L construct, along with the reasons for major variances under the respective functional heads is provided in the earnings presentation. You may go through the same for further details. Coming to working capital, our NWC to sales ratio has improved from 11% in March 2025 to 4.1% in March 2026, mainly supported by higher customer advances and increased vendor credit. Our group level collections, excluding financial services for Q4 FY 2026 is INR 667 billion vis-a-vis INR 682 billion in Q4 of the previous year.
With continued focus on customer collections, our cash flow from operations, excluding the financial services segment in Q4 FY 2026 was at INR 171 billion as compared to INR 107 billion in Q4 FY 2025. Our group cash flows, excluding financial services, has been given in the annexures along with reported cash flows to enhance the clarity on the cash flow movement between the financial services and the rest of L&T. Finally, the trailing 12 month ROE for Q4 FY 2026 is 15.5% vis-a-vis 16.3% in Q4 FY 2025, a decline of 80 basis points for the year. The trailing 12 month ROE, excluding the impact of the one-time provision related to labor court, stood at 16.6%.
Very briefly, I will now comment on the performance of each business segment before we give our final comments on the outlook. We start with infrastructure. The infrastructure segment order inflow at INR 435 billion grew by 26% in Q4 FY 2026 on a Y-on-Y basis, aided by the receipt of an ultra mega order in the Middle East. The order book of this segment is at INR 4.23 trillion as of March 2026. The book-to-bill for infra is around 27 months. The revenue for the quarter was at INR 397 billion, registering a growth of 2% Y-on-Y basis. The subdued progress in the domestic and international projects led to the softer revenue growth. While pickup in revenue was anticipated for Q4, the execution was impacted by spillover effects of the West Asia conflict.
Our EBITDA margin in this segment improved to 8.8% in Q4 FY 2026 vis-à-vis 8% in Q4 FY 2025, largely due to a favorable job mix. Moving on to the next segment, energy projects, which comprises hydrocarbon and carbon light solutions. The order inflows in this segment were robust at INR 213 billion in Q4 FY 2026, having a mix of both domestic and international projects as compared to INR 322 billion order inflow in the previous year. The order book of this energy segment is at INR 2.58 trillion as of March 2026, with the hydrocarbon order book at INR 1.95 trillion and the carbon light solutions at INR 0.63 trillion.
The Q4 FY 2026 revenues for the segment was at INR 166 billion, reflecting a strong 36% growth and underscoring execution progress on a large order book. The energy segment margin in Q4 FY 2026 is at 6.5% as compared to 8.2% in the Q4 of the previous year. Cost overruns and closeout costs in legacy projects impacted the segment margin. As mentioned in the previous quarter, we expect the margin to improve in this segment post a couple of quarters. Moving on to high-tech manufacturing segment. This comprises the Precision Engineering and Systems and the heavy engineering businesses. The heavy engineering order inflows benefited from nuclear equipment orders while the PES order inflows moderated due to deferrals.
The order book of this segment is INR 353 billion as of March 2026, with the PES order book at INR 289 billion and the heavy engineering order book at INR 64 billion. The segment revenue at approx INR 49 billion registered a robust growth of 45% Y-on-Y driven by execution ramp-up in the large programs in the PES business. Heavy engineering revenue decline in Q4 is largely attributable to a modest order book. The heavy segment margin is largely reflective of the job mix. Moving on to the next segment, which is the IT and the technology services segment, which comprises our two listed subsidiaries, LTM and L&T Technology Services, including our newly incubated business of digital platforms, data centers and semiconductor design.
The revenues of this segment at INR 141 billion in Q4 FY 2026 registered a growth of 13% year-over-year. The operational efficiencies in LTM and portfolio recalibration in LTTS drives the segment margin improvement. I will not dwell too much on this segment as both the companies in this segment are listed entities, and the detailed fact sheets are available in the public domain. We move on to L&T Finance. Here again, the detailed results are also available in the public domain. Briefly, I will summarize that Q4 witnessed the highest ever quarterly retail disbursement and improved collection efficiencies as well as asset quality. The L&T Finance business has secured 98% retailization of its loan book as of March 2026. The ROAs remain healthy at 2.4% for Q4 FY 2026. Moving on to the development project segment.
This segment includes Hyderabad Metro and the power development business comprising of Nabha Power. As mentioned earlier, L&T has signed SPAs for the divestment of Hyderabad Metro and Nabha Power. Accordingly, the assets and liabilities of both these investments or these SPVs rather, have been classified as held for sale in the financial statements for March 2026. We expect both the transactions to achieve closure this quarter, that is Q1 FY 2027. During the quarter, Hyderabad Metro reported a net loss of INR 1.79 billion in Q4 FY 2026 vis-à-vis a net loss of INR 0.07 billion in Q4 last year. The previous year included the TOD monetization gain of INR 1.87 billion in Hyderabad Metro. Moving on to the other segment.
This segment comprises Realty, Valves, Construction Equipment Mining Machinery, Rubber Processing Machinery and the residual portion of Smart World and Communication business. The segment revenue stood at INR 16.9 billion, recording a decline of 29% Y-on-Y, primarily to the lower handover of residential units in the Realty business vis-à-vis the previous year, which also weighed on the segment margin overall. I will now cover our strategic plan for the next five years, starting FY 2027, ending FY 2031, termed as Lakshya 2031, and as well conclude with the guidance for FY 2027. First is we will cover the Lakshya 2026, the previous plan. On the delivery side against an FY 2021 base, the company scaled meaningfully across two growth metrics: order inflow and revenue.
The order inflows increased from INR 1.7 trillion in FY 2021 to INR 4.4 trillion in FY 2026, translating into a 20% CAGR vis-à-vis the planned 14%. The revenue grew from INR 1.4 trillion to INR 2.9 trillion over the same period, delivering a 16% CAGR reflecting consistent execution against the earlier estimated assumption of 15%. While ROE printed below the stated target, the progress achieved has been significant, moving from around 10% at the start of the plan to 16.6% in FY 2026. While I say 16.6%, this excludes the impact of the new labor quotes in the current year. This improvement demonstrates sustained momentum towards long-term return objectives. Over the period, the performance was supported by a series of deliberate strategy-led actions.
Value accretive growth within the projects and manufacturing portfolio anchored in disciplined capital employment, reflecting in a structurally higher ROCE. The merger of LTIMindtree to build scale and depth in technology and IT services. Successful progression of development project exists with the divestments of the Hyderabad asset, L&T Infrastructure Development Projects IDPL, Nabha Power, and Hyderabad Metro, thereby leaving no residual legacy assets in the portfolio. Disciplined capital returns through a buyback and early investments to seed future growth engines such as data centers, green energy, and semiconductor design. Second, on the macro environment that a company expects to operate in the medium term. The domestic environment continues to be supported by a durable structural growth narrative with a GDP growth on a 6%-7% trajectory, driven by a sustained investment cycle across both physical and digital infrastructure.
Against this backdrop, the opportunity sets remains expansive and multi-year in nature, spanning infrastructure creation, energy transition, defense, and technology-led services. Energy security and energy transition are progressing in parallel, spanning coal and nuclear on one hand, and renewables, battery energy storage systems, and grid infrastructure on the other. The defense spending is increasingly driven by digitalization as the country seeks to build strategically independent platforms with a strong emphasis on modernization and innovation within the country. Private sector CapEx remains selective but is increasingly structural and sustainable, with enterprises sharply focused on disciplined execution and return focus. In parallel, India's emergence as a preferred global capability hub is reinforcing the GCC engine as enterprises continue to scale captive centers to access high-quality talent and support transformation agendas in a cost-competitive and resilient manner.
At a global level, the operating landscape is evolving amid geopolitical realignments and a measured retreat from open-ended globalization towards trade architectures prioritizing resilience over cost efficiency. The energy transition is accelerating as a strategic risk hedge rather than a pure economic choice, while deeper AI adoption is driving productivity gains and reshaping the workforce. Against this backdrop, the Middle East CapEx remains purposeful and resilience-focused, anchored in long-term national priorities and diversification agendas. Thirdly, the company has adopted its segmental reporting framework, with the earlier projects and manufacturing structure being now formally redesignated as projects, products, and manufacturing, PP&M. The only material change is the segregation of the Realty as a standalone reporting segment, while all other businesses remain broadly comparable with selective internal realignments to sharpen the strategic focus.
As part of this realignment, the company has consolidated its energy green EPC business under a green energy reporting segment within the new PP&M structure. The segment comprises renewables. Earlier, it was under infrastructure projects and offshore wind, which was earlier forming part of hydrocarbons in the energy segment, along with the onshore wind business, thereby unifying the group's green energy EPC capabilities under a single segment. Separately, the development project segment, earlier comprising assets such as Nabha Power and Metro, has been repositioned towards green assets, including operating green hydrogen and green ammonia production facilities under a BOO framework. For clarity, while these projects are aligned with the energy transition theme, the development project segment remains outside of PP&M, reflecting the fundamentally different capital structures, investment horizons, and the asset ownership characteristics of these businesses.
The construction equipment industrial product design and development business, which was earlier part of the other segment, is now getting reported or will now get reported under the Manufacturing and Product segment. We have presented the historical data of revenue and margin for the last five years for ease of reference as part of the Lakshya 2031 deck, which is included in the Q4 earnings presentation. I will now mention the order prospects for FY 2027 and comparative for FY 2026 under the new segment classification. As mentioned earlier, we have a total prospects pipeline of INR 17.8 trillion for FY 2027 vis-a-vis INR 19 trillion for which we had for FY 2026. The breakup of the prospects pipeline is as follows.
Infrastructure utilities segment, the prospects pipeline is INR 9.4 trillion for FY 2027 as compared to INR 8.1 trillion for the previous year. Of the infrastructure pipeline for FY 2027, INR 6.8 trillion is domestic, while INR 2.5 trillion is international. The sub-breakup of the various businesses within this infrastructure and utility segment is as follows. Transportation infra share is 23%. Heavy civil infra share of 20%. Power transmission distribution share at 18%. Buildings and factories share at 17%. Water effluent and treatment share at 16%. Minerals and metals share at 6%. Coming on to the energy conventional segment, the prospects pipeline is INR 5.4 trillion for FY 2027 vis-à-vis INR 7.6 trillion in the same period last year.
The prospects pipeline of INR 5.4 trillion consists of hydrocarbon prospects of INR 4.7 trillion and carbon light solution prospects pipeline of INR 0.7 trillion. 83% of the hydrocarbon prospects pipeline is international, while carbon light solution prospects are largely domestic. The energy green segment prospects pipeline is INR 2.5 trillion for FY 2027 as compared to INR 3.0 trillion in the previous period. The prospects pipeline of INR 2.5 trillion consists of solar EPC pipeline of INR 1.8 trillion and offshore wind pipeline of INR 0.71 trillion. 78% of the solar EPC pipeline is international, while offshore wind is completely international. The manufacturing and product segment prospects pipeline is INR 495 billion for FY 2027 vis-à-vis INR 294 billion for FY 2026.
I repeat, the manufacturing and product segment prospect pipeline is INR 495 billion for FY 2027 as compared to INR 294 billion for FY 2026. The FY 2027 pipeline comprises of heavy engineering projects of INR 122 billion and the PES pipeline of INR 373 billion. Just to add, the previous year had prospects of gas to power projects of INR 0.6 trillion, which we have not pursued and hence is not forming part of the FY 2027 prospects list. Coming on to fourth on strategy and outcomes. Lakshya 2031 is structured around scaling and upgrading existing business while building selective future engines. In the projects business, the priorities are margin stability, selective geographic diversification, private sector CapEx focus, and technology-led execution.
The manufacturing and products portfolio is centered on advanced and complex engineering capability across the PES business, forays into electronics, heavy engineering and construction and industrial products. The defense business will be anchored on platform and system indigenization, strengthened through strategic partnerships and sustained investments in R&D and IP creation. The industrial electronics is being scaled through focused positions in robotics and automation, communication platforms and electronic system design and manufacturing, aligning the portfolio with structurally growing technology-intensive end markets. Within heavy engineering, priority is on deeper integration across the nuclear value chain while consolidating leadership in the oil and gas segment. Realty u nder Lakshya 2031, the realty business is planned to scale through a disciplined strategy focused on land acquisitions or joint development, partnered integrated township development and selective expansion of the commercial portfolio.
The plan envisages reinforcing leadership by strengthening the brand's position as the most trusted and preferred in the sector. In parallel, sustained focus will be placed on operational execution and governance standards to support listing residence readiness. Development projects. As outlined earlier under the segment reporting change, the development project portfolio is being selectively reoriented towards asset ownership in the green hydrogen and green ammonia manufacturing facilities under a BOO framework, leveraging L&T's integrated end-to-end capabilities across the value chain. Market participation will be calibrated and selective, focusing on domestic and export opportunities supported by firm long-term take-or-pay arrangements. The strategy is underpinned by strong strategic partnerships for investment and offtake, alongside a disciplined focus on internal rate of return. I come to technology platforms and services.
Under Lakshya 2031, LTM aspires to double revenues over five years, driven largely by organic growth and select inorganic moves while sustaining competitive mid-teen operating margin and a more balanced, resilient portfolio. Under Lakshya 2031, LTTS is repositioning itself as a global engineering intelligence partner, supported by deeper client relationship and sustained investments in talent, IP and AI-driven delivery models. The Lakshya L31 targets 13%-15% revenue CAGR growth over five years with EBIT margins of 16%-17%, reflecting a structurally stronger and higher quality growth profile. In data centers, the objective is to scale the business where via hyperscale alliances, AI-ready infrastructure and sovereign private cloud offerings. In the semiconductor design, we will be focusing on strengthening our capabilities to cater to mobility, industrial and energy sectors. L&T Finance.
The focus of L&T Finance will be to deliver resilient growth with consistent returns balancing scale-up with prudence across the cycle. The strategy emphasis discipline portfolio expansion and strong risk management with targets of 20% plus loan book growth while maintaining credit costs below 2%. The financial outcomes under the plan are calibrated to deliver a 3%-3.2% ROA and a 16%-18% ROE, reinforcing sustainability of returns while scaling the franchise. I come to capital allocation during the L31 period. On capital allocation, our approach is anchored around funding our long-term growth plan while safeguarding returns, balance sheet strength and financial flexibility. Our CapEx strategy has a twofold objective. The first objective is to focus on strengthening the core business through capability upgrade, automation initiatives and project-linked CapEx to enhance execution efficiency and competitiveness.
The second objective is directed towards selective seeding and scaling the future growth engine, including data centers, green hydrogen, semiconductors and industrial electronics. Within the new business over the plan period, we envisage a capital outlay of approximately INR 50 billion towards industrial electronics, INR 30 billion into the semiconductor business, largely for the creation of proprietary IPs, INR 150 billion in green hydrogen, where we are also actively evaluating options for strategic partnerships to optimize capital deployment, and around INR 100 billion towards the data center business. It is important to note that for the data center business, we are currently evaluating multiple business and partnership models. Accordingly, the pace and scale of investments may change depending on the final structure adopted. We are allocating almost INR 44 billion for the Realty business, primarily to fund development of commercial real estate.
In addition, the parent will provide near-term support for land acquisition for upcoming residential or mixed-use projects. Thereafter, the entity or the business may explore external fundraising options, including debt and/or equity. Additionally, we plan to invest around INR 50 billion for upgradation of our existing hydrocarbon modular fabrication yard and the shipping facility. As part of our strategic plan, we are adopting a business-specific leverage approach. At L&T Finance, leverage will support growth. In the green assets portfolio, the focus will be on project financing basis. For realty and new businesses, leverage will be aligned to the business model adopted. Overall, the returns to shareholders over the next five years will be a function of the cash flow generated by the PPM business and the timing scale of investments in the new growth areas. I will now conclude with the guidance for FY 2027 and Lakshya 2031.
First, the guidance for FY 2027. Order inflow. On order inflows, our prospects pipeline of INR 17.8 trillion for FY 2027 is providing a strong visibility. Based on this visibility and the opportunities we are pursuing, we expect the group order inflows to grow in the range of 10%-12% in FY 2027. On revenue, we expect growth to be in the range of 10%-12% for FY 2027. We do anticipate a softer first half, primarily due to the current supply chain disruptions, with the pickup happening in the second half as these constraints ease. Encouragingly, we are already seeing improved momentum in the water projects, with some payments coming through in March and in a few projects where starts were delayed due to pending clearances, which have now been received.
On margins, as referenced in the Lakshya slide on the new segment structure, we will now present Infrastructure and Utilities, Energy Conventional, Energy Green and Manufacturing and Products together under the Projects, Products and Manufacturing overall portfolio, PP&M. The key difference in this reclassification is that realty is excluded and being presented as a separate segment. On this reclassified basis, the FY 2026 margins for Projects, Products and Manufacturing was 7.8%, and we expect the same to be stable as well in FY 2027 as well. Coming to working capital, we closed the year at 4%, largely supported by customer advances received during the last quarter and a higher vendor credit. As these advances get progressively utilized, we do expect some normalization in working capital levels.
Accordingly, we are guiding the working capital to be around 10% in FY 2027, which remains well within our targeted range. Finally, note that this guidance that I provided for FY 2027 is basis our current expectation that there will be overall broad normalcy after Q1. We will revisit and update this guidance as required in July when we report our Q1 FY 2027 results. Concluding with the Lakshya guidance, over the next five years, we are targeting order inflow growth at a CAGR return of 10%-12%, revenue growth of 12%-15% and a return on equity in the range of 16%-17%.
The ROE guidance reckons in upfront investments into the newer business and platforms, which we believe will begin to meaningfully scale and contribute to profitability in the later part of the plan horizon. With this, I conclude. Now we can get into Q&A.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone phone. 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. Your first question comes from the line of Mohit Kumar from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, sir, and thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on a very strong ordering flow, given the challenges. My first question is the order book has grown by 19%, 22%, and 28% in the last three years. Of course, I understand that the war is on, and it's difficult to forecast in near term. Do you think that the revenues growth trajectory can improve materially once the geopolitical condition improves?
As I said, we have given the revenue guidance of 10% to 12% for FY 2027 basis the fact that the first six months will be subdued, given the fact of the situation that is happening in the Middle East. We expect by the end of Q1 the conflict to subside and normalcy to get restored, which will take another two months. Hopefully the second half of the FY 2027 will be a more busier second half. We have factored this while giving the guidance of 10%- 12%. As you see, when I talked in the last part of my speech, I did say that we are taking our sales at target of 12% -1 5% revenue CAGR over the L31 plan.
Which means that obviously it also factors the fact that FY 2028 onwards, the revenue growth momentum should get stabilized, assuming external condition, all other things, remaining favorable.
Understood. My second question is, sir, since there has been a revenue miss in Q4, given that we were reasonably confident of meeting revenue guidance till Q3, and consequently looks like the margin improvement has not come through in this quarter. Is it correct assessment? How much should attribute it to geopolitical situation?
It's a little difficult question. Let me put it like this, on a broad basis, we would have lost in terms of revenue almost INR 50 billion odd in Q4 just on the course of supply chain issues that impacted both largely the infrastructure side, the projects that we are executing in the Middle East, power transmission distribution and renewables. As I mentioned in my speech, we have also had some slippages in the water segment, but these slippages in the water segment has been throughout the year. We did expect because the Jal Jeevan Mission program, the purse strings were loosened sometime end of Q3, and we thought that we could be able to retrieve the lost ground. Unfortunately, in that segment, the execution has been a little patchy.
Net-net, because of these three segments or sectors, power transmission in Middle East, renewables in Middle East and water, I would say that the overall slippages in revenue will be in the range of almost INR 50 billion for the quarter.
Mohit, sir, does that answer your questions?
Yes.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Parikshit Kandpal from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, P.R. Congratulations on a decent quarter. My first question is I wanted to understand a little bit more in detail on the risk buckets emanating from the Middle East order book, which is fixed price in nature. We know that order book is fixed price. There is a lot of uncertainty around the-
Parikshit, your voice is breaking.
Just one second, sir. Hello, can you hear me now? Is it better?
Yeah, better, better.
Sir, I just wanted to understand a little bit more detail on the risks which are currently emanating from the Middle East order book, which is fixed price in nature. That is in fixed price, but commodity inflation, then time and cost overruns, then How do we cover ourselves? What kind of contractual provisions we have from the client side to compensate us in case of? Is there any force majeure progress? Can you give some more color on all these things, especially on the risk side?
Okay, Parikshit, this is Sarma here. Let me take this question. I think, I mean, instead of calling it as a risk, I said that as I see it, there are more opportunities than risk at this point in time. All my interactions with the major customers, I think, they have laid down a major capital expenditure plan to expand capacities. In fact, we believe that in the subsequent quarters, we will see many more prospects coming our way. I think the bid pipeline should only strengthen. I think in terms of order inflow, I do not see that as a risk. In fact, it could be an upside.
What you say, what you talk about inflation and cost increase due to inflation, I think we have spoken about this before. Many of our contracts, we have the ability, particularly on the infrastructure projects, we have provisions for price adjustments based on increases. Some of the energy projects, generally they are fixed lump sum. I think customer is quite sympathetic with the situation. In the preliminary discussions we had, they are very open to have a dialogue, and I am expecting that we should have some reasonable, fair, you know, negotiations on that to compensate at least the cost, if not anything else.
Overall, I do not see that as a big risk, and we'll have to see how things unfold. Currently, the environment is, I would put it as overall, positive.
The bigger risk will be inflation according to you, or it will be supply chain risk because of the freedom of navigation being restricted so which will be the bigger risk?
sorry to interrupt.
And
Parikshit Kandpal, sir, your voice is again going, like, you know, it's modulating.
Hello. Is it better now? Hello.
This is much better, sir.
Yeah, better.
I was saying, sir, is supply chain a bigger risk here or inflation is a bigger risk here? Also on the margins that you were carrying before the crisis began, so do you think that even currently you are well covered on those margins? Are you seeing any major disruptions there? Only negotiations with the client can resolve that. How do you attribute these factors on the margin?
The biggest risk is the supply chain, but I know it is continuously getting better. I mean, there are much better movements now between the GCC countries and some alternate routes have opened up. Of course, the cost is high, and therefore we are sort of taking a very, very measured approach. If the customer is agreeing to that increased cost of logistics, because he wants to push the project and make, keep the progress, then we are moving the material. Otherwise, we are playing little bit of wait-and-watch game because we don't want to incur the cost. They depend on the negotiations. I think it's a delicate balancing.
That's why PR said that in the first two quarters you may see a little bit of a slowdown on the revenue and depending on how much material we are able to move without incurring additional cost. There are cases where customer is still very keen to proceed with the jobs and then he is ready to compensate, then we have no problem in moving the material.
Okay. Just last thing on the prospect pipeline, sir. I mean, this has declined, this in your commentary earlier PR mentioned that. In the current environment, how is the client taking decisions on how the CapEx will shape up for rest of the year, given there is so much uncertainty? What is the commentary you are hearing with the customers? Is there any change in the CapEx outlook if new segments are emerging? If you can give some more color how it is changing, the nature of CapEx will change post this crisis.
No, I mean, I mentioned this earlier, I think the CapEx narrative is quite positive. In fact, you would have seen in the press also that in UAE, they had a very major conference, I think earlier this week, where they announced major expansion plans and close to about $55 billion of capital outlay in the next three to four years. They're easing out lot of local requirements and things like that because they want to push their capacity. I think same thing will happen in Kuwait and in Qatar. I think in the coming two or three quarters, I mean, at particular, I mean, maybe not two, three quarters, but in the next few quarters, you will see a lot of projects getting announced.
Okay. Sure, sir. Thank you. I'm sure that those were my questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all the participants in the conference, we request you to limit yourselves to one question each per participant and rejoin the queue for any follow-up questions. Our next question comes from Aditya Bhartia from Investec. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, sir.
Good evening.
While speaking about your long-term order info guidance, you've indicated that you'll be looking for selective geographical expansions. Just wanted to understand which geographies could we look at. Can Europe be a bigger opportunity for us after the TenneT order? If you can just highlight something around that.
It is like this. Over the last, I would say the L2026 period, apart from India and Middle East, we just set ourselves some amount of projects into the Central Asian Republics. We do expect the momentum to get strengthened soon. We have also set ourselves into the offshore wind segment, which is more Europe-centric. We do believe that that part of the world can offer us more opportunities in select segment, not necessarily all the segment that L&T caters to.
We are also planning as part of our tech initiatives, we are also looking to expand into EPC through modular systems, which means that we will try to reduce our site intensity, which means we can, in a way, become geography agnostic by making maximum items in our fabrication, shops, either in India and Middle East, and getting it shipped to the global destination. Similar to what we have done in India.
As a case in thing we did for a urea plant in Australia, which is actually an EPC contract, most part of it got modularly fabricated in our Chennai, Kattupalli yard, and thereafter it was shipped and it was only some amount of local, I would say, commissioning that work that was done.
These kind of, I would say in fabrication models also we are pursuing, which will enable us to cater to a larger EPC universe instead of focusing with the traditional site-based activity. Some newer geographies in offshore wind could also be apart from Europe, can be also Korea and Taiwan. Hopefully, I think some opportunities also shaping up. These are places where.
Renewables in will be in Indonesia.
Renewables in Southeast Asia as well.
Sure, sir. You hinted at some conversations that are happening with customer in respect of cost compensation. In the past, have we seen this level of increase in raw material prices ever, and customers in the Middle East being okay to kind of enter into negotiations? I just want to understand what have our experiences been and how it the scenario played out during such disruptions, let's say during even COVID.
Yeah, I mean, in the past also we had, maybe not in the short period of time we did not have so much of increase because oil prices have gone up quite a bit. There has been similar situations, and customer response has been, I would say, quite reasonable. I mean, I think, even the current dialogue and discussions we are having, they seem to be quite receptive.
Sure, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Amit Anwani from PL Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you. Thanks for taking my question. First question on the Middle East. The 40% book exposure which we have, amid this war, has the duration increased, and what is the current duration of that Middle East book, which is roughly about INR 3 lakh crore? Second, in terms of projects, including offshore hydrocarbon, onshore hydrocarbon and renewable, what is the mix and which portion actually is seeing the major impact in the Middle East, basis your current assessment there?
What was the first question?
The-
The duration of the Middle East order book because of this.
Because of the conflict.
the duration of the jobs in Middle East would have gone up. He wants us to know. I mean, he wants to know that. It's not really, I must say, most of the projects what we have in the Say, let's put it at, I mean, I think let's recap. I think we have majority of our projects are in hydrocarbon onshore, offshore, and under renewable space, right? I mean, in terms of value. Now, in renewable space, our track record in the past has been that we have been finishing these jobs ahead of time, at least two to three months ahead of time.
I think even if you assume that these two, three months are lost because of this disruption, we will be still be able to finish the projects on time, if not earlier. I mean, I do not expect any delay. When it comes to hydrocarbon onshore, where we are today with respect to the projects which are currently under execution, either they are in a very early phase of engineering and procurement, or they are in the later phase of construction, where the material delivery and logistic challenges are not going to impact significantly the overall duration.
I think the offshore, except one project where we are scheduled to move some of the stuff from our yard in Oman to the work site, which is held up, rest of the projects are again moving reasonably okay. This is also a long gestation project. It's the completion is sometime in 2028, second half. We have adequate time to recoup, even if there is some dislocation. Overall, I do not see that there is going to be a major extension in the project portfolio. That's the first one. What was the second one? I think it covers also the second question. Yeah. You have covered.
Yeah, yeah. Sir, I think I just wanted to also understand in terms of you mentioned about shipping and logistics cost going up. Any basis point impact or increase in these costs you must have seen in these two months, if you could highlight that also.
We said, no.
Also-
kind of very carefully calibrating that. We are not going ahead and incurring the cost unless the customer is ready to reimburse. Otherwise, we are kind of slowing down and we'll move the material when the cost comes down. It is already coming down. It used to be $8,000 per container. Now it has come down to $5,000 and maybe it will come down further even as the time progresses.
Amit, I did mention that the logistic costs have gone up and insurance costs gone up, I also told that we are on active discussions with the customers to ensure that these cost increases, how we are able to pass it on to the same.
Yeah.
Discussions with the clients are happening at a very, very intense level in terms of the overall project timelines, the tendering. The client, the customer also understands that. We don't think at this juncture.
Right
It is premature to comment about any impact per se.
Right. Second on the Lakshya plan, whatever growth you're building in, if you, if possible for you to highlight since you're getting into a lot of focused areas and you said we'll be scaling up there. What is the infra versus non-infra growth buildup which is happening? Same, I think, if it would be better to understand the PPM margin of 7.8% how that will increase, you, if I recollect, you said 7.8% will be 7.8% this year also. How that will pan out in the Lakshya plan? Any understanding on these two will be helpful.
Amit, let me put it like this, that, we have given, the guidances on the return on equity. Return on equity is a factor of how much are we ensuring the overall improvement in the numerator, which is profitability, and also how much are investments, that is the denominator part. All of these things are a function of that. In fact, in year 2026 plan also, we only focused on the return on equity target because on a five year horizon.
Margin
A margin I think is a little difficult, especially for our business of PPM. Okay. I guess, we will stay put with that number. What is the first question that you asked, the PPM margin guidance of 7.8?
Sir, the revenue non-infra versus infra, how the growth?
Okay. This is being done at an overall level, so I think we will stay at the group level. At this juncture, each year we will give the breakup possibly between the relevant businesses. At this juncture, I think, we'll keep it at a group level, the revenue momentum or CAGR growth.
Sir, lastly, if I may, on the data center, you talked about some INR 10,000 crore CapEx towards that business. So if I may understand, are we going to target You, you talked about some technology types you're exploring on that, the partners. So is it that we'll be the EPC, we'll be doing EPC also and we'll be operator also leasing these data centers? What exactly would be the kind of target we are looking for during this Lakshya plan in terms of megawatt of data centers? If you can give some color.
Shankar Raman here. Let me answer this. In terms of data center, there are two distinct business models that are possible. One is the where you develop a sophisticated commercial real estate and based on tenancy you collect your yields. That's one kind of data center business. We are not excited about that. What we want to do is make sure our data center is AI enabled, which means that we will have servers and GPUs which will enable high computing to be done, and for which obviously global hyperscalers would be one client set, but there are also quantum computing organizations which would be another client set. At the moment, the thinking is that about 200 MW worth of data center capacity we could create over time.
As you might know, initially we have created 30 M W, and another 30 MW is under construction in Mappedu. The first 30 MW is in Kanchipuram in Chennai. Our idea is between Hyderabad, Vizag, Bangalore and Mumbai, we should be able to put together this 200 MW capacity, but that'll come in modules. The effort would be to see whether we can do some build to suit, meaning that we have an arrangement with both the server chip supplier, GPU supplier, as well as the end user. MOU that we have with NVIDIA is precisely towards that once we assure a certain capacity being created and of the type that would interest certain large organizations, then it'll also go into the market and generate.
What returns they would give, it's a little speculative at the moment because the cost of setting up the data center and how you populate the data center will derive the returns. Our guess is it should be able to give about 13%-14% return at the, at an optimal level, which will have combination of hyperscalers and non-hyperscalers. We'll have to figure out as we go along. At the moment, we are trying to curate the market, develop supply chain, and also create facility from the ground up. That's the thinking. Maybe the full benefit of these investments will flow in 2031/2036 plan.
Sure, sir. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you so much. All the best.
Thank you. Participants are requested to limit their questions to one each per participant. The next question comes from Sumit Kishore from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. Congratulations to P.R. on elevation of role to CFO. My first question is, the only question is that projects, products and manufacturing margins have been range bound between 7.7%- 7.8% for the last three years. The guidance again is 7.8%. Over this period, if I look at the segmental breakup, energy conventional margins have been coming off sequentially from FY 2024 to 2026, and all other segments have seen improvement. You have been calling out that the hydrocarbon sub-segment has been a drag on the energy segment margins, and there are unexecuted legacy order book here. How large is this unexecuted legacy order book?
Are the ultra-mega orders that you have booked in this segment, aren't those going to sort of drive margin improvement going forward, or would they have a long gestation period and initial period of execution, which is why you are guiding to stable margins? Our thought process, I think, was that two quarters down the line you'll have margin improvement in energy segment. Slightly long question, but I think it's very important to understand your thought process here. Thank you.
Okay, Sumit, thank you. While I was covering the energy segment, okay, I made a specific mention, and this energy segment margin movement softness has been discussed in the previous call also. I've been telling you that we have had certain legacy projects which are at their terminal stages of completion. Most of these projects have got completed. They have been almost in the verge of handing over to the client, and what will be left out is what we call the technically the defects liability period. We believe so far as the hydrocarbon is concerned, those projects have got completed, and we should not see any further cost creeps happening from those because the projects have been handed over.
I did talk about in the call today that we expect the segment margins to move this up as we get into the newer projects that are under execution. It is also important for me to say that this is all a status update as a particular point of time. When we gave the guidance that stable what we have talked for FY 2027, we are told it's a stable guidance, okay. I did refer to the fact as to the Q1 and Q2, considering that the execution momentum could be a little softer because of the situation in Middle East impacting both supply chain into Middle East and also possibly even the local projects.
This has been factored into that the momentum of execution being a little softer in H1 FY 2027, while we are guiding a stable margin profile for FY 2027.
Sure. As the situation normalizes, the normalized run rate of PPM margins will not be stuck at 7.7.8%, there might be an improvement?
I'm only giving you stable margins for FY 2027.
Sure.
I don't want to give a number because, as you know, this is a portfolio of jobs. There are some jobs which do well, there are some jobs which have a little, can be a little, I would say.
Challenges.
Challenges could be there. Having said this, we have communicated that energy margins went down because of the projects. Those projects have got closed. Hopefully, logically speaking, the margin should be improving in that segment in the coming quarters.
My only worry is that the ultra mega, you know, stage of execution should not or if it becomes an impediment to margin improvement in this segment two quarters down the line, because those orders will be at early stage of execution.
No, we do not anticipate anything of that sort now at this point in time.
Thank you so much, sir. Wish you all the best. Thank you.
We're also working on recovering some of the costs which we have incurred with customers, and that will also help.
On the earlier jobs.
On the earlier jobs. Since we cannot account as and when they get crystallized, it may can come directly as a margin, but time will tell.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Atul Tiwari from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Sir, could you give some more details about your foray into electronic manufacturing services in terms of how big the CapEx will be and what are the timelines and any other details in terms of customers or which product segment you will enter into?
I did indicate that we are setting a number of around INR 50 billion as the CapEx for this particular business. It is essentially going to be industrial and defense-related electronics. In fact, our PES business already has a small amount of what we call defense-related electronics business. That is being taken out and put in this overall electronics part. The capital investment outlay in this plan is, as I said, INR 50 billion or INR 5,000 crores, which will be incurred over a period of time. Essentially it will cater to industrial automation, robotics automation, the electronic components that are inputs for these kind of, I would say, industrial applications is what we are targeting. We are not looking at consumer B2C segment in this particular space today.
Okay, sir. Sir, what is the update on your, you know, bid for AMCA development and medium altitude long endurance platform as well?
I think what we mentioned in the AMCA during the January call, I think the status update continues to remain the same. Apart from us, there is one more counterparty who have been, I would say are there in the fray. Let us see. We don't have much further to say beyond what we stated in January.
Okay, sir. Thanks. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Puneet Gulati from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much, and congrats, PR, for your elevation. My question is, first on the revenue line where you talk about 12%-15% revenue. How much of it could be driven by your existing business, and how much do you think the new businesses should drive?
I would say 12%-15%, you are referring to the CAGR growth that we have put in L31?
Yes.
Mostly would be
Correct.
From the existing businesses, the growth.
Okay. On the ROE also, your previous target was 18%. This time you restricted to 16%-17%. How should one think about that?
Puneet, last time, 10%-18%, when we gave that guidance was on the basis of, I would say, the concession projects completely off. In fact, Hyderabad Metro was to be off in 2023, 2024 itself during the plan, but it's happening in 2026, 2027. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.
We also had an option of the margin improvement and also the working capital intensity. We factored the buyback. Okay. We did not have that much of capital intensity in the last plan in so far as this time is concerned. When I'm giving the guidance of 16%- 17%, if you just add up the numbers of the investment that we are talking about, be it electronics, be it green energy, be it in data center, these businesses, no, in response to the earlier question, that 12%-15% revenue growth is all coming from what you call largely PPM and LTTS portfolio.
Okay.
These large investments, most of them will be in the investment phase, and maybe at the end of the plan they may actually getting into a revenue generation phase. We have factored all of this while giving the ROE targets of 16%-17%.
Understood. Thank you.
The only one aspect I would like to.
Yeah
Specifically mention is, in a way L26, no, every item. What we mentioned was the profitable return accretive growth in P&M. That is what if you see in our presentation at the end, we also given the return ratios of the various businesses. If you see the return ratios of the P&M from FY 2022 to 2026, it has more than doubled. Although the margins could have moved southward, but the return ratios have gone up because we have taken on the back of profitable growth or stable profitable growth at lower capital intensity and hence improving the return thresholds. What we stated as buyback was also one. Second was the complete projects on the concessions portfolio.
Of course, it took time, but as we speak now, that part of the portfolio is now virtually done and dusted.
Okay, sir. That is very clear. That is all from my side. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Priyankar Biswas from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity and of course congratulations to you, PR. My first question is, for the 10%-12% growth that you have guided in the Lakshya 2031 plan, that is till FY 2031. If you can elaborate a bit, what sort of growth you are baking into your plan from Middle East and, let's say from the other regions because of geographical diversification?
Okay, Priyankar today, if structurally speaking, if you see the old PPM, old P&M or the new PPM business excluding Realty, I think, the way we have been seeing the last three years is technically order inflows are 50-50. 50% domestic, 50-50 international. It is primarily because that given L&T size, I don't think just working on India would suffice. We have expanded our credentials. Rightly, we expanded our credentials, our competency bandwidth into multiple segments, now we are considered as one of the top-notch EPC contractors in Middle East for a variety of segments.
We do expect that apart from the primary geography of India, the next important geographies are Middle East and some parts of Europe, and I talked about Indonesia for renewables and maybe offshore wind for Korea, Taiwan, apart from Europe. These things are going to, I think, be a sustainable order prospects geographies for us. Given this kind of a little more expansive geography, at this juncture, I don't have a number per se, but what we can talk is 50-50, that order inflow intensity between domestic and international may continue.
The new business or new geographies may contribute 5%?
5% but the international
50.
50/50 would be, I think, you can assume this probability to continue that way.
Would it be fair that Middle East would actually continue based on what Sarma said also highlighted about Middle Eastern prospects?
Yeah
We have seen like strong growth in the Middle East, so that should continue during the plan period. Would it be a right thing to assess?
Yeah, Middle East will continue to be our core market. I mean, for us to provide that kind of growth, we cannot provide without Middle East. It will remain and we are very optimistic about that region.
That's very helpful. Middle East can still deliver, let's say, a double-digit type. Finally, one more thing. Like if you can elaborate on your real estate plans. You had already achieved, if I heard it right, INR 94 billion in pre-sales in FY 2026, right?
Correct.
By FY 2031, let's say in the Lakshya Plan, what sort of scale for L&T Realty that you see both in terms of sales and let's say pre-sales?
See, Shankar Raman here. The plans we are currently pursuing is about 100 million square feet between residential and commercial. The plan is about 70% will be residential, 30% will be commercial. The commercial will provide me the annuity cash flows to sustain quarters when you don't have ramp-up of residential.
In so far as residential is concerned, there are two calls we have taken. One is to position ourselves as a premium housing provider. We'll not get into this mid-size, mid-scale housing complexes, we'll get into larger. Within that, we'll try to get into township kind of situations rather than single buildings. We've also decided that there are a few markets where return per sq ft is the highest. For example, Mumbai is one such, NCR is another. Maybe our focus would be in markets where the return ratios are superior as compared to more subdued market, like maybe Hyderabad, for example. The approach is that as we find opportunities, we'll also have to find capital, because this is a capital-intensive activity. Much of the land that L&T currently owns have been in the monetization mode for the last few years.
Looking forward, by the time Lakshya 2031 ends, I don't think we'll be left with much land out of L&T's bank. It has to be land acquired at current prices and sold at current prices post-development.
That would mean the capital calls will have to be frequent and consistent. One of the reasons why we are restructuring the realty business is at some point in time to enable the company, like financial services, to be market-facing. The access to capital would be determined by the opportunities in those select markets and for the type of development I spoke to you about. It could be fair to say that this 100 million square feet that we are currently siting about, 60, 65 is both completed and under active development. Really futuristically, we are looking another 30 million square feet now. Over the next five years, we possibly might look at another 100 million square feet. I think that would possibly peak our execution capacity as well as balance sheet exposure.
Just to add one more, that CAGR growth in pre-sales is over the L31 is around 25%, is assumed in realty.
This is a sales or a pre-sales CAGR you are saying, 25% Lakshya?
CAGR growth, I said pre-sales.
Oh, pre-sales. Okay. Okay. Sir, if I may just squeeze just one more in. Can you just give, let's say, the CapEx number that you plan for FY 2027? Just try to model out the intensity over the years. At least what should be it a ballpark number for FY 2027?
You can take electronics at INR 1,000 or INR 10 billion, INR 1,000 crore. No normal projects part of our CapEx, we can take around INR 25 billion. INR 25 billion, you take INR 25 billion as CapEx for the core PP&M business. Okay. INR 10 billion for the electronics part of the business. Data center we can take maybe around another INR 10 billion. No, it can be more than that. You can be a little maybe around INR 20 billion as the spend for the current year.
Okay, sir. That's broadly from my side. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Nidhi Shah from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you so much for taking my question. In the last quarter, we mentioned that, out of the five L1s that we had in Kuwait, four had been canceled and one was going ahead, and retendering was expected in four of those. What is the status of those projects in Kuwait?
Kuwait, I think.
Kuwait.
Okay. Nidhi, on Kuwait, like we said, out of the four, three were canceled, we are hoping one will survive. The good news is that, as we know, it has survived. I think it has been going through the approval process, the project will go ahead, it is under approval of various stakeholders.
Do we have any update on the retendering? I mean, I know it is early days considering the conflict, but are we hearing anything?
Retendering will happen during this year.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Renu Baid Pugalia from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good evening, team. Thanks for the opportunity. One question was wanting to understand why you have outlined INR 50 billion CapEx for the overall electronics portfolio. In the current month or earlier last month, you've already commissioned the factory in Coimbatore. Also wanted to understand here is, does your five year CapEx include any investment in the supply chain and the ecosystem for electronics, segments like OSAT, et cetera? Or it will be purely EMS-focused investments that you've outlined of INR 5,000 crores?
Nothing on OSAT, Renu. It is all on the traditional electronics only.
Sure. Targeting EV, solar inverter kind of solutions that you have already-
Robotics and all that stuff.
The market. Perfect.
Yeah.
Secondly, going through and listening to whatever you have discussed so far, it clearly looks that the share of manufacturing across your various segments, including EPC, when you are looking at international with the modular approach, will see significant increase in the share. Would it be right to assume that while some of the newer areas or emerging segments are in capital-intensive mode and hence will optically depress your ROEs over a five year period, but the core portfolio which you are running through should definitely be inching 18%, 20% plus ROE along with the growth and margin expansion that we are gunning at?
That's a fair assumption we can make, Renu.
Yes.
Perfect. That's it. Thank you so much, and best wishes to you.
Thank you.
It was always a pleasure interacting with you, RSR, all these years. Best wish to you. Yes, we are welcome and best wishes to everyone.
I'm going nowhere. I am in the company for two more years, so you can continue to have the pleasure of interacting with us.
Yeah. Sure.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Aditya Mongia from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions from my side. The first question more on reconstruction CapEx. As you see through, as in you have a certain time that you have for overseas, is it already factoring in some part of reconstruction CapEx, or what are customers actually seeing? Linked up to this, any thoughts on the CapEx in Iran, whether when will participate over there? That's the first question.
On the reconstruction or reinstatement, I mean, I think the numbers are still very fluid at this stage. There's a good amount of assessment happening. Some amount of repairing work is already happening. From what I have gathered, the number can be anything between $30 billion-$50 billion over the next three years. That's what is being assessed, but very difficult to sort of put a finger on it, I want to tell you honestly. It is in that range.
Understood. Just a last question from my side. When you think through the investments beyond EPC, is it more to do with the fact that we want to be in a certain ROE range of 15%, 17% and then a INR 50,000 crore number pops up and then we divide it across buckets?
Can you repeat?
Is that a constraint? What we are trying to say is that the numbers that you kind of gave to us in terms of investments beyond EPC.
Yeah.
between hydrogen, semiconductors, so on and so forth.
Is the thought process more bottom-up in the sense of where do we want to be five years from now, or is it constrained by us being a certain 16%-17% ROE band, and thus we have only as much to invest for the next five years? I'm just trying to say how much clear line of sight does the company have, and is the balance sheet a constraint?
Shankar Raman here. Balance sheet is not a constraint. I think, first and foremost, we want to be future ready. We do believe that the businesses that we are currently in will continue to have strong momentum going forward, at least in the context of next five years. We want to use that phase to create alternate streams of revenue and cash flow. To do that, we need to chalk out certain investment. If the company requires capital, given the fact, we have such a credible track record in the financial markets, we should be able to go out and raise capital. That is not the concern at all. What we are all the while worried is responsibility for returning value on the capital. Just because capital is available, we don't want to just scatter it around.
We just want to make sure that the investments are measured and we keep the risk-adjusted return in view all the time for your sake.
Got that. Thanks a lot for response. Those were my questions, yeah.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Bharanidhar Vijayakumar from Avendus Spark . Please go ahead.
Good evening. Am I audible?
Yes, yes.
Yeah. Okay. Congrats first of all to PR. My first question is on Qatar. We know that the world's largest LNG facility has been impacted and likely to be repaired. When you mentioned this $30 billion-$50 billion of repairing or reconstruction opportunity in the next three years, are you considering this as well? Do we have a role to play in this gas projects also?
I mean, like I said, I don't have a breakdown by country, by project, because it is that kind of information is not available. It is that $30 billion-$50 billion from my judgment or my assessment is based on my discussion with various senior executives, and it does include the LNG train also t wo trains are affected. In that currently, we do not have any much role to play, because it is all go back to the people who built it earlier. What it will do is that, you know, it will keep some of my competition busy in that.
It will provide me a better opportunity for the other bids where I'm not involved.
Okay, great. Second question is on the areas like semiconductors and data centers. INR 10,000 crore of investment in data center indicate incremental 200 MW of data center capacity. We initially had 100 MW. Is that the right understanding that we are doubling our expectation?
No, no. The understanding about doubling expectation is right because we need to scale. To be able to attract the type of clients we want to cater to, we need to have scale. The linkage of INR 10,000 crores to 200 MW is not linear, because it depends on the type of data center that we want to put up, et cetera. It can vary anywhere between INR 35 crores per MW to INR 350 crores per MW, depending on how we want to populate it. At the moment, what we are trying to pursue is this, but the configuration of 200 MW will actually evolve as we go along.
Sure. Even similarly on semiconductor, we had, through the Fujitsu JV and the SiliConch Systems, a plan to do design rather than fabrication. So the new CapEx of around INR 5,000 crores or INR 3,000 crores you mentioned, is it on similar lines or anything more in fabrication or new that we are planning?
No, it is largely towards acquisition of IPs wherever there are white spaces, plus creation of lab facilities. It is not getting into fabrication or OSAT.
Okay. My final question is on the domestic execution. One month has passed in this financial year, and I think there would be impact due to the supply chain costs, labor, even on domestic execution. Have you, your thoughts on that?
When I have given the guidance for FY 2027, I did mention in my script saying that Q1, Q2 will have an impact, mostly from Middle East, but domestic also there will be some impact because of supply chain.
Sure, sure. Understood. All the best, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Amit Mahawar from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. First of all, congratulations on managing the risk, pretty well vis-a-vis your global peers in last two, three years, particularly in Middle East. Sir, Mr. Sarma, particularly, I just want to understand, do you think in the next six to 12 months, conditions on infra versus energy project in Middle East are gonna be very divergent, and you see a lot of rebid, and reissue of infra tenders or reworking of infra tenders, or you think, that is unlikely? I just want to understand the risk profile of the infra book we have vis-a-vis the energy book. I'm very comfortable with the energy book, but if you can help us on the infra order book in Middle East, sir.
No, the infra projects are also coming up. I mean, essential. We are in the essential infra space. We are not in the resorts and hotels and things like that. Those essential infra projects will go ahead definitely in Saudi, definitely in UAE. I think the rail transport network will expand. We remain, I think, if at all, I mean, in this crisis after, of course, this disruption for the next few months. Post that disruption, I think, generally there will be more investment and more, you know, prospects. That's the way I, that's the impression I carry.
True. A quick one, sir. You know, if you talk to Saipem, Samsung in Europe and Korea, et cetera, they are all looking at rebuild opportunities in Iran also. Do you think the availability of manpower in the next six to 12 months is gonna be difficult and expensive? Any color on manpower, sir? That's it. Thank you.
Manpower continues to be a challenge even in India, right. I think we are looking. That's why we have put laid down in our Lakshya 2031 technology enabled execution. We'll look at opportunities to see how we can do more automation. We have done a lot actually in this space, and we'll continue to work on that to see how we can improve productivity by using latest technology and automation and reduce our dependency on manpower. Having said that, I mean, it's not going to be replaced. I mean, it will be only reduced. Also look at modular solutions. Do it at the place where we have access to workforce.
Combination of interventions will have to be used to overcome that challenge.
Sure, sir. Thank you very much, and good luck.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions, I now hand the conference over to Mr. P. Ramakrishnan for closing comments.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the patient listening. I hope all the queries we have been able to articulate our FY 2026, FY 2027 and L31 story quite properly. Thanks for your time, and once again, good night. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Larsen & Toubro Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you everyone for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.