Shares of Afcons Infrastructure climbed 1.2% to ₹213.73 in early trade on Thursday on the National Stock Exchange. The mild bounce defied an operating collapse. Net profit for the July-September quarter plunged 60.7% to ₹41.3 crore from ₹106 crore a year earlier, according to regulatory filings submitted after Wednesday’s closing bell. Revenue dropped 11.8% to ₹2,635 crore against ₹2,988 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal.
Buyers stepped in anyway. But the numbers underneath show severe margin erosion across ongoing engineering projects. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) sank 72.3% to ₹91 crore from ₹328.7 crore. That compressed the company's operating margin down to 3.5% from 11% twelve months ago — a punishing 750-basis-point hit.
| Metric | Q2 Current Fiscal | Q2 Previous Fiscal | YoY Change (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | ₹2,635 crore | ₹2,988 crore | -11.8% |
| EBITDA | ₹91.0 crore | ₹328.7 crore | -72.3% |
| EBITDA Margin | 3.5% | 11.0% | -750 bps |
| Net Profit (PAT) | ₹41.3 crore | ₹106.0 crore | -60.7% |
Yet institutional dumping failed to materialize at the opening tick. Traders took refuge in the group’s execution pipeline. Afcons reported an order backlog of ₹43,837 crore at the end of September. Fresh order inflows during the first half of the financial year stood at ₹15,968 crore, while the bidding pipeline for the remainder of the fiscal year sits at ₹0.8 lakh crore. Market participants are treating the current earnings slump as a trough quarter, betting that project billing will accelerate before March.
A single morning tick does little to repair long-term capital destruction. The counter has slumped 11.5% over the past month and shed 38.2% across the last six months. Since the start of the year, the stock is down 45.6%.
Margin rehabilitation now takes centre stage. Street focus shifts toward project milestone billings in the third quarter and whether conversions out of the ₹0.8 lakh crore pipeline can stem the cash burn.