Shares of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) fell 4% to Rs 2,270 on the BSE in Thursday’s intraday trade on profit booking after the engineering giant reported a 10% rise in its consolidated net profit to Rs 3,987 crore in the March quarter (Q4FY23) compared to a profit of Rs 3,621 crore in the same period last year. Revenue rose 10% year-on-year to Rs 58,335 crore.

Shares of the country’s largest infrastructure company hit an all-time high of Rs 2,416 on May 2, 2023. However, although the stock is down 4% from its all-time high, L&T still outperformed the market, surging 9% so far in the calendar year 2023. The S&P BSE Sensex gained 1.5% over the same period. Over the past year, L&T has gained 45%, while the benchmark index has gained nearly 15%.

L&T’s profit growth was supported by a 43.7% YoY increase in other income to Rs 741 crore in Q4FY23. Profit before interest, depreciation and tax (PBIDT) rose 7.3% in single digits to Rs 9,095 crore from Rs 8,474 crore a year earlier.

However, figures for the fourth quarter came in slightly below expectations. According to a Bloomberg poll, analysts had expected a net profit of Rs 4,032 crore on revenue of Rs 58,907 crore in the March quarter.

L&T ends 2022-23 with a record-high order book of Rs 4 lakh crore. The company said it received new orders worth Rs 2.3 lakh crore at the group level in the year ended March 31.

L&T gave sales growth/order inflow guidance of 12-15%/10-12%, respectively. Management highlighted that conservative revenue growth in FY24 may be affected to some extent by the election.

Meanwhile, L&T announced that it had appointed S N Subrahmanyan as chairman and managing director, effective October 1, 2023. A M Naik has decided to step down as non-executive chairman of L&T Group.