“The aim is to become ‘fit’ in this period (12-18 months)…it is about cash and if we are able to generate 4-5% cash on our revenue, that’s actually the highest metric of fitness,” managing director and chief executive Vinayak Pai told ET.
“There is (however) no hard target saying that you do this and then we will list; it’s about getting fit,” he said, adding: “It’s a shareholders’ prerogative.”
AgenciesThe company, whose landmark projects include the New Parliament Building in New Delhi and Atul Setu in Mumbai, derives above 20% of its projects from Tata Group companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Power, Indian Hotels, Tata Steel and Tata Electronics. The share, Pai said, has gone up from about 8% two years ago and can be attributed to the group’s significant investments in various sectors, including campuses, hotels and transmission lines.
According to Pai, the company’s growing competence and capacity have made it a preferred partner for Tata Group projects. This includes developing specialised skills and capabilities to handle complex projects.
That aside, the company will enhance focus on areas such as semiconductors, green energy, solar, data centres and green fuel going ahead.Tata Sons is the majority shareholder in Tata Projects, holding 57.31% as on March 31, 2024. Other shareholders are Tata Power (30.81%), Tata Chemicals (6.16%), Voltas (4.30%) and Tata Industries (1.42%).Late in 2023, another group firm, Tata Technologies, went public. That IPO was the first from the Tata Group in 19 years, after TCS hit the primary markets in 2004.
Tata Projects had an orderbook of around ₹44,000 crore as of June 2024, according to ratings firm Crisil. Around 90% of the outstanding orders were from India.
“We were in the planning and rebuilding phase, and wanted to stabilise, so we were not being aggressive in taking fresh work. Now that we have better bandwidth and better capacity, we are going more aggressive around orders,” Pai said.
For the financial year ended March 31, the company reported consolidated gross income of ₹17,761 crore and net profit of ₹ 81.97 crore, driven by robust order execution and lower provisioning. It had posted a loss of ₹855.65 crore the previous year.
The company is getting more orders from the private sector, and this could also skew its revenue mix to 70:30 in favour of the private sector in around five years, he said.