L&T’s data centre business onboards first major customer in Tamil Nadu – CNBC TV18

Larsen and Toubro on Thursday, December 12, said its data centre business L&T-Cloudfiniti has onboarded its first major customer at its hyperscale data centre in Sriperumbudur near Chennai.

The centre has a built-in capacity of 30 MW, of which 12 MW colocation-ready capacity is live across two floors, the company said. Its client, which is a leading cloud service provider, has rented a 6 MW IT load capacity, comprising high-density racks spread over an entire floor, and a bulk bandwidth, it added.

The contract tenure is of 10 years.

Seema Ambastha, Chief Executive, L&T-Cloudfiniti, said the deal marks the beginning of many such collaborations. “In the days to come, we are confident of redefining India’s data centre landscape with our fast scalable and reliable solutions,” she said.

On another note, last week, L&T said it had successfully overturned a ₹702 crore customs duty demand following a favourable ruling from the Central Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, Ahmedabad.

The demand stemmed from an earlier order by the Principal Commissioner of Customs, Ahmedabad, which denied customs duty exemptions to the company. L&T had filed an appeal with the tribunal challenging the order. On December 5, 2024, the tribunal ruled in favour of L&T, allowing the appeal and setting aside the entire demand.

The company reported a 5.4% increase in net profit at ₹3,395.3 crore in the September quarter. In the orevuous year, it posted a net profit of ₹3,223 crore, while the CNBC-TV18 poll had predicted a profit of ₹3,200 crore for the second quarter of this fiscal.

Its revenue from perations surged 20.6% to ₹61,554.6 crore against ₹51,024 crore in the year-ago period, aided by accelerated progress in the various businesses in the Projects & Manufacturing (P&M) portfolio. The CNBC-TV18 poll had predicted revenue of ₹57,942.6 crore for the quarter under review.

At the operating level, EBITDA increased 13% to ₹6,362 crore in the second quarter of this fiscal over ₹5,632 crore in Q2 of the previous fiscal. The CNBC-TV18 poll had predicted an EBITDA of ₹6,114 crore for the quarter under review.

The EBITDA margin stood at 10.3% in the reporting quarter versus 11% in the corresponding period of FY24. EBITDA is earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation. The CNBC-TV18 poll had predicted a margin of 10.6% for the quarter under review.

L&T shares were trading 1.15% lower at 3,872.25 apiece at 10.15 am on Thursday, December 12. The stock has gained 9.86% this year, so far.