Engineering and construction company, Larsen & Toubro, said stymied investment climate and delay in finalisation of several government projects led to 22 per cent fall in the company’s order inflows for the quarter ended June 30, 2009. This led to a muted 7 per cent sales growth for the first quarter.

The firm believes the second quarter would be no different. However, it will achieve its full-year sales target of around 15-20 per cent as conditions are expected to improve from third quarter onwards, senior company officials said. “We are betting on third and fourth quarter order inflows to meet our full year target of 25 per cent,” said R Shankar Raman, senior vice-president (finance) at L&T.

The company’s recurring profit after tax (PAT) grew 15 per cent to Rs 578 crore for the quarter ended June 30. L&T also recorded an exceptional gain of Rs 1,020 crore on the divestment of its entire stake in UltraTech Cement. Including this gain, overall PAT of the company stood at Rs 1,598 crore an increase of 218 per cent, the company noted in a release. “Some of the major projects that were to take off in Saudi Arabia, Muscat and Oman did not happen. We lost the Muscat Airport order while the refinery project in Saudi Arabia was withdrawn,” Raman said.