Of the 2,988kms of project awards in ytd FY10, IRB has the highest share of 12.8%, followed by IL&FS Transportation Network (ITNL) at 10.1% and Reliance Infra at 9.1%. IRB particularly has bagged all projects on tolls; with average grant at ~36% of the project cost (max permissible is 40%). Given the large scale projects coming up for bidding, we believe that opportunity pie for companies has increased. Key stocks to play the theme includes: IRB (Not Rated), ITNL (Not Rated) as project developers and L&T (Neutral), NCC (Buy), HCC (Buy), IVRCL (Neutral) as contractors / developers.
The following chart shows the market share of each of the companies in Highways
