A 25.39 per cent rise in profit after tax (PAT) to Rs 604.11 crore in the third quarter has been posted by Larsen & Toubro (L&T), the country's largest engineering and Construction Company; the credit of which goes to the strong growth in engineering and construction business.

However, the one-time gain of Rs 916 crore has been excluded by PAT, which the company made from the sale of its ready-mix concrete business to Lafarge SA. The quarter's profit, including the one-time gain, tripled to Rs 1,520.44 crore.

There has been a rise by 36.45 per cent to Rs 8,922.77 crore from Rs 6,539.41 crore in the total income after 54 per cent growth in its engineering and construction segment.

"The financial slowdown has forced the company to cut its investments in ports and shipbuilding businesses. The company, which planned to build a shipyard in Chennai, will cut investment there by half to Rs 2,000 crore," said R Shankar Raman, executive vice-president (Finance), L&T. A 30 percent rise in order flow was witnessed by the company in the nine-month period ended December 31, 2008. There has also been reduction in the average execution cycle time to 23 months from 24 months. The company, which is expecting a 15-20 per cent rise in the order book for the current quarter, also has an order backlog of Rs 68,800 crore.

L&T President J P Naik reported, "L&T is seeking new markets beyond West Asia such as Africa, Far East and China to neutralise the slowdown in new contracts from India and to increase its international revenue. In the third quarter, the company's international business contributed 18.5 per cent to the total revenue."

There was an increase in the expenditure for Q3 by 37.65 per cent to Rs 7,835.74 crore in the December quarter.

A whopping Rs 307.27 crore as tax in the same period was paid by the company. The company had procured fresh orders worth Rs
14,620 crore in the quarter under review against Rs 13,019 crore in the year-ago quarter, said the engineering giant in a filing to BSE.