Larsen & Toubro, the country's biggest engineering company, is open to spending as much as $1 billion on acquisitions for its software-services unit as the subsidiary prepares for an Initial Public Offering.

Buying companies will help L&T Infotech build scale and compete with larger rivals, R Shankar Raman, L&T's Mumbai-based chief financial officer, said in an interview. The company might spend between $100 million and $1 billion, he said, without being more specific.

MUMBAI: Engineering major Larsen & Toubro has signed a technology transfer agreement with South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries to build carriers for liquefied natural gas (LNG) at its shipyard at Kattupalli, near Chennai.

While L&T aims to bag order from staterun GAIL which is likely to re-launch tender for nine LNG carriers with this tie-up, the company hopes to get more orders in India and abroad. GAIL had issued a Rs 42,370-tender to charter nine LNG carriers in August last year which was later scrapped due to dismal response.

A deal signed between engineering firm L&T and French nuclear vendor Areva for maximising the localisation of critical components for the proposed 10,000-MW nuclear power plant at Jaitapur marks a desperate attempt to prune the cost of each of the six 1,650 MWe (mega watt electric) reactors to be deployed at the site in Maharashtra to about $4 billion. This is expected to translate into a generation cost equivalent of about Rs 7 per unit.

Infra major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) will construct a luxury housing project of Wave Infratech in Noida.

The project 'Eminence' would be completed in 42 months. Eminence spread over 1.62 acres is part of Wave's mega township project Wave City Center.

Shares of L&T Finance Holdings has moved higher by 4% to Rs 66.45 on the NSE in an otherwise weak market after reporting a 10% year on year (yoy) jump in its consolidated net profit before exceptional items at Rs 206 crore for the quarter ended March 2015 (Q4). Net interest income grew 21% at Rs 706 crore on yoy basis.

Gross non-performing assets (NPA) during the quarter under review declined to 3.01% against 3.18% and net NPA to 1.98% from 2.29% over the previous year quarter, L&T Finance Holdings, the non-banking financial arm of Larsen & Toubro said in a filing.

The Indian rupee was trading marginally higher at 62.83 per dollar against previous day's closing value of 62.85 a dollar tracking gains in equities.

BSE Healthcare index was the top gainer up 1% followed by Capital Goods, FMCG, Metal, Oil and Gas indices.

Shares of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) were trading higher by 1% at Rs 1,783 on the BSE after the company said it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with French firm Areva for cooperation to maximise localisation for the EPR nuclear power plant to be built at Jaitapur in Maharashtra.

Areva’s EPR nuclear reactor is a third generation advanced pressurised water reactor.

Marginal recovery in rate sensitive shares in late trades helped markets recoup intra-day losses to finally end flat even as the Reserve Bank of India at its policy meet early today maintained status quo on key rates.

The 30-share Sensex ended up 12 points at 28,517 while the 50-share Nifty ended nearly unchanged at 8,660.

Larsen & Toubro (L&T) today said its construction arm has bagged orders worth Rs 5,492 crore across various segments in March.

In the building and factories segment, the projects L&T Construction has won include a major order for construction of a mix use development complex in Mumbai, it said.

Infrastructure firm Larsen & Toubro has bagged a Rs 5,580—crore contract from state—run NTPC for setting up a thermal power project at Khargone in Madhya Pradesh.

“Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has secured a turnkey order from NTPC for setting up a 2x660 MW greenfield thermal power plant in Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh on EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) basis, ” the company said in a statement.

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