NCC Adheres To 15% Revenue Guidance For This Fiscal
Head of Strategy Neerad Sharma said that NCC has been able to deliver a revenue growth upwards of 30% each year in the last three years.
Infrastructure and construction firm NCC Ltd. has reiterated 15% revenue guidance for the current financial year after strong Q1 results. The company posted one of its best first quarter revenues in the last several years despite muted new order inflows due to the Lok Sabha polls, according to Neerad Sharma, Head of Strategy and Investor Relations at NCC Ltd.
In an interview with NDTV Profit, Sharma said that NCC does not wish to revise the 15% revenue guidance for FY25.
“There are two parameters in the first quarter: we have had a model code of conduct in place, and because of this reason, the award has been sluggish across the board. Whenever elections are announced, government machinery sort of freezes and awards are sluggish. The second thing we need to talk about is revenue. Despite the fact that we have had elections across the country, we have been able to deliver one of the best first quarter revenues in the last several years. We continue to see a ramp up in the execution and we are quite confident that the award pipeline should also start rolling out now,” Sharma said.
“We don’t wish to revise the number as we speak; we have two and a half quarters to execute. In the last three years in a row, we have been able to deliver growth upwards of 30% each year, so that has given us a higher base. The 15% revenue growth is a good target to have and achieve,” Sharma added.
Sharma also said that the company’s order inflows will be in the range of Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 22,000 crore in FY25. He added that in the first quarter of FY25, the company has already achieved 44% to 45% of the lower band of the order inflow guidance.
“We do not wish to revise the order inflow guidance we have shared with the street. We are L1 in about Rs 8,500 crore to Rs 400 crore of orders we have reported in the first quarter. If we add these numbers, we are looking at something close to Rs 8,900 crore to Rs 9,000 crore, which is about 44% to 45% of the lower band of the guidance we have shared with the street.”
Sharma also said that the company plans to execute about 85% to 90% of the Rs 52,626 crore order book in FY25. Sharma added that the company has executed a substantial part of its Jal Jivan Mission Project’s order book and the project will be completed on time or ahead of schedule.
“We have had an order book of Rs 6,900 crore (Jal Jeevan Mission); we have executed a substantial chunk of the project in the last two years; what remains to be executed is Rs 6,000 crore of the project. The execution is going smoothly and we expect to complete the project on time or ahead of schedule,” Sharma said.
Sharma said that the company has bagged three new smart metering projects, which are jointly worth Rs 8,080 crore. Two of these projects are from Maharashtra and one is from the state of Bihar.
“We have bagged three smart metering projects and the total order value from these projects will be Rs 8,080 crore. The two projects are from the state of Maharashtra, and the order value of these two projects is Rs 5,700 crore. The third project is from the state of Bihar; the order value of that is Rs 2,300 crore as we speak. We have already started the trials for the smart meters in the state of Bihar and hopefully we will start the same for Maharashtra,” Sharma said.
“We continue to see a healthy pipeline of projects, we see a number close to Rs 2 lakh crore. We have four large divisions: buildings, transportation, electrical T&D and water, and relatively three small divisions: irrigation, mining and railways. The bulk of the projects will be awarded in the four large segments and we might see some traction in railways as well,” Sharma added.
Sharma said that the capital expenditure plan of the company for fiscal ending March 2025 is about Rs 450 crore and the company is likely to spend most of this money in its four major businesses.
