The Hindu Business Line : L&T bullish on power generation biz

Mumbai, May 28 Larsen & Toubro will pay special emphasis to its power, defence and shipyard segments as part of its overall growth strategy. “We expect power generation to be big business in the future,” Mr A.M. Naik, Chairman and Managing Director, said at a press conference here on Thursday.

The company has drawn up a roadmap for its nuclear power plant foray, which involves cooperation pacts with Areva of France, Westinghouse of the US and Rosatom of Russia.

Relatively quick progress is expected with Rosatom since this is a brownfield expansion in Tamil Nadu, which should not take longer than a year.

The Areva initiative in Maharashtra could be completed by 2011 if everything goes according to plan.

Mr Naik said that the Railways were also promising from the viewpoint of the company’s order book.

Opportunities here were from the mining sector (which involves building railway loops), monorail projects in Mumbai (and a handful of other cities) and the Metro in Delhi and Bangalore.

There were attractive mid-term prospects from high-speed trains modelled on the lines of the TGV in France and Japan’s Bullet Train.

Special focus

L&T will give a special thrust to its international business which today accounts for 18-19 per cent of its turnover. “Our objective is to increase this to 25 per cent,” Mr Naik said.

As part of this effort, new corporate offices will soon be set up in Libya and South Africa with the intention of growing business in Algeria, Angola and Mozambique. Similarly, an office is being planned in Brazil with an eye on equipment supplies.

A large part of L&T’s global turnover comes from West Asia. The company was not adversely hit by the economic collapse in Dubai since its exposure to key projects was limited.

It remains bullish on business growth in Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Saudi Arabia where some major infrastructure projects will be commissioned.