With investors indulging in some strong buying at the counter, betting on hopes the engineering major would get some prestigeous defence contracts amounting to Rs 40,000 crore, shares of Larsen & Toubro Limited stayed up in positive territory right through the session on Friday.
The company, it is reported, is hoping to win six defence contracts from the government, which is keen on developing the sector and looking to meet its requirements on time, will take the assistance of private sector defence players.
According to reports in the media, Jayant D Patil, Whole-time Director and Senior Executive Vice-President (Defence Business), L&T, feels that government's intent on moving with its defence policies, clearing and finalising the Strategic Partnership Policy and integrating it with the new Defence Procurement Procedure, is appreciable.
In an earlier report, Patil is said to have pointed out that India’s new defence purchase policy that allows non-state local firms to compete for orders from the military is helping L&T to become more ambitious.
In May this year, Larsen & Toubro had bagged a $700-million order for artillery guns, and the winning of an order of that size has given rise to hopes that private sector defence players may be chosen by the government for mega orders as well.
Also, the company sees a strong push by the government toward increasing infrastructure investments and areas such as T&D, water, rail, Metros, smart cities and renewables.
The Larsen & Toubro stock ended the session with a gain of about 4.3% at Rs 1175 on BSE, after touching a high of Rs 1182 intraday. The counter clocked a volume of about 3.36 lakh shares today, as compared to average daily volume of 1.24 lakh shares.
Larsen & Toubro topped the charts today, with the counter at NSE recording a turnover of Rs 575.38 crore, on a volume of around 4.94 million shares.
