India's Larsen & Toubro posts Q1 profit beat, approves $1.22 bln share buyback

BENGALURU, July 25 (Reuters) - Indias Larsen & Toubro (LART.NS) reported a better-than-expected first-quarter profit on Tuesday, boosted by strong performance at its core engineering and construction business, and approved buyback of shares worth up to 100 billion rupees ($1.22 billion).

L&Ts consolidated net profit after tax surged 46.5% to 24.93 billion rupees for the quarter ended June 30. Analysts, on average, had expected a profit of 19.74 billion rupees, as per Refinitiv IBES data.

The engineering companys order inflow jumped 57% during the quarter, taking its consolidated order book to 4.13 trillion rupees.

The companys infrastructure projects, its biggest segment, logged orders worth 400.51 billion rupees, with international orders contributing 35%, up from 183.43 billion rupees last year.

The companys focus will remain on cash generation and capital allocation, it said in a statement, adding that it also expects growth momentum to continue on higher government capex allocation, stable inflation and easing global supply bottlenecks.

L&Ts results are often seen as a key indicator of capital expenditure in the Indian economy, due to the diverse nature and scale of projects under the companys portfolio.

The Mumbai-based companys revenue from operations for the quarter rose about 34% year-on-year to 478.82 billion rupees.

L&T said that the share buyback will take place via a tender offer at price of 3,000 rupees per share and also declared a special dividend of 6 rupees per share.

Shares of L&T closed 1.7% lower ahead of results, while benchmark Nifty 50 index (.NSEI) closed up 0.04%.

($1 = 81.8173 Indian rupees)