MUMBAI (NewsRise) -- Larsen & Toubro, India's largest engineering and construction company, is seeking to enter new markets in Africa and Asia as it grapples with lackluster demand at home and slowing orders in the Middle East.
L&T is striving for "geographical diversification as a bulwark against single-country dependency," Chairman A.M. Naik told shareholders at the company's annual meeting on Wednesday. "We are looking at a few other countries in Africa." The company's first-quarter profit plunged a worse-than-expected 37%, as spending on infrastructure suffered in India where economic growth is yet to show a sustained pick up. L&T, which has won a string of metro rail and road projects in Qatar and Saudi Arabia in recent years, now faces a slowdown in orders in the Middle East amid plunging crude oil prices.
