Shares of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) slipped 5 per cent at Rs 936 on the BSE on Thursday as investors booked profit after the announcement of the company’s September quarter results of FY21. Further, the company’s board approved a special dividend of Rs 18 per equity share i.e. 900 per cent on the face value of Rs 2 each, for the financial year 2020-21. The company has fixed November 5, 2020, as the record date for the purpose of payment of dividend. 

The stock had gained for eight straight trading days, rallying 11 per cent, as compared to 0.48 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex till Wednesday.

The construction & engineering major reported a reasonable July-September quarter (Q2FY21) operational performance amid a subdued business environment.

L&T’s standalone revenues de-grew 15.8 per cent year-on-year (YoY) at Rs 15,792 crore. Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) margins declined marginally by 50 bps to 7.8 per cent YoY. The adjusted profit after tax (excluding impairments and E&A proceeds) declined 40.8 per cent YoY to Rs 1,052 crore during the quarter.

“L&T reported a reasonable performance on the operational and order inflow front while the infrastructure segment saw some green shoots of recovery amid productivity challenges. Also, cash proceeds from the sale of E&A business provided much-needed liquidity comfort on the balance sheet front in these challenging times,” ICICI Securities said in a note.

However, working capital levels continue to be a key monitorable in the long term. Additionally, High-Speed Rail (HSR) mega project is by far the largest EPC order that L&T has won in its history significantly improving its order intake for FY21E despite the challenging economic environment. This will further strengthen its order book and enhance its revenue visibility for the coming years. L&T plans to deploy state of art construction methods and extensive digital technologies for this project, it said.

At 09:35 am; L&T was trading 4 per cent lower at Rs 944 on the BSE, as compared to 0.66 per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex. A combined 2.9 million equity shares had changed hands on the counter on the NSE and BSE.