Punj net down by 44%, recommends 10% dividend

New Delhi, June 27 (UNI) Engineering and construction major, Punj Lloyd Ltd (PLL) registered a 44 per cent drop in its net profit at Rs 55.46 crore for the financial year 2005-06, as against Rs 100.60 crore in the previous fiscal, recommending a dividend of 10 per cent.

The lower turnover in FY06 was on account of slow progress in obtaining Right of Way (RoW) for road orders worth Rs 1200 crore in Rajasthan and Assam.

The consolidated income of the company stood at Rs 1716.59 crore for the financial year, down by 11 per cent, as compared to Rs 1920.32 crore last year.

On the expanded equity of Rs 52.21 crore, the basic EPS was Rs 12.74 while diluted EPS was Rs 12.06.

The company's management expects that in the current fiscal, PLL (other than SembCorp Engineers&Constructors) would be able to generate income between Rs 3500 crore to Rs 3750 crore with similar EBITDA margins.

''As of this date, we are holding unexecuted orders worth Rs 5502 crore. We have a geographically and segment-wise diversified order backlog, which reduces overall business risk. Over 37 per cent of our order backlog is now represented from projects based outside India,'' PLL CMD Atul Punj said.

The company has recently acquired a majority stake in SembCorp Engineers&Constructors, a Singapore-based 1 billion dollar company.

It also entered into a JV with Saudi Prince to form 'Dayim-Punj Lloyd Engineering Limited'.

Punj Lloyd JV has recently bagged an order worth Rs 428 crore for the completion of Dabhol LNG Terminal.

UNI CS DKS KN2047