Revival of execution drives revenue growth: Revenue growth returned in the sector, with the E&C space doing particularly well. Revenue growth was
25-28% in 4Q FY10 vs 10% in 9M FY10. However, the T&D pack (ABB, CRG, SIEM) continued to be a laggard, with flat revenues throughout FY10.
Strong order inflow to drive revenue growth in FY11: Order inflow for E&C companies grew by 46% in 4Q FY10, but on a FY10 basis, large-caps posted
flat order inflow (primarily due to BHEL) and mid-caps reported 47% growth. The order backlog grew by 26% for large-caps and 23% for mid-caps in FY10.The T&D pack had 10% growth in order inflow and 15% growth in order books.
We expect significant revenue growth across the board: We believe that execution revival will help E&C companies to achieve healthy top-line growth of 25-28% in FY11. We believe T&D companies can deliver 14% growth on a good order book backlog in FY10.
Large-cap companies had margin expansion of 100bp in 4Q FY10, which led to a 200bp improvement in FY10 vs FY09. Mid-cap construction had flat margins for 4Q FY10, but registered a 100bp improvement in FY10 vs FY09.
Suzlon and Punj Lloyd were the clear laggards in FY10, with both revenues and margins falling YoY. Suzlon’s order book (which sets the pace for FY11 revenues) is extremely weak, while Punj continues to take write-downs in Simon Carves and cost over-runs for the ONGC project. Moreover, the revenue outlook for FY11 is weak, we believe, because there is no progress on the Libya project (28% of order book).