Rajiv Mittal, Managing Director and S Varadarajan, Executive Director addressed the call.

Highlights of the call:

The management is happy that the company has performed well despite the impact of the liquidated damages from the Oman Desalination plant.

With the healthy order backlog and with margin drag projects moving towards their closure, the outlook is now bright to deliver on the growth and profitability.

Consolidated Sales for the nine months stood at Rs. 2,069 crore grew 25%. 

Operating profit grew 37% and to Rs 165 crore. 

In spite of being adversely affected by the levy of Liquidated Damages from its Desalination plant project in Oman, the company reported a 13% growth in its PAT.

Order intake is of more than Rs 2700 crore.

Order Book stands at over Rs 8400 crore including Framework contracts of about Rs 870 crore.

The company won a desalination and a Sewage Treatment Plant Order in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a value of $ 82.5 million. This order proves the company's ability in executing world class and complex project.

It bagged the contract extension of "Thermal Power Plant Long Phu 1" project in Vietnam for the Condensate Polishing System, another significant part of the Power Plant.

It also won an Integrated Water Supply Project in Barmer District in Rajasthan from Public Health & Engineering Department of Rajasthan.  This order value is about Rs 595 crore.

In December 2016 quarter sales grew 18% to Rs 718.32 crore. 18% growth in topline is aided by good on track execution in its large overseas projects.

Rise in total cost of operations is mainly on account of employee cost in IIU's like Malaysia, Bahrain, Singapore and Philippines.

Margin expansion from the standalone entity led to better operating margins.

However standalone Q3 FY17 sales were impacted due to delay in commencing Chennai TTP and Sri Lanka WTP project. The two projects are expected to gather pace in March 2017 quarter.

Margin expansion in few international projects through procurement and engineering efficiencies resulted in higher margins.

Exceptional item in standalone financials represents the payment of liquidated damages in the Oman Desalination JV.

In consolidated financials the loss in share of profits from associates reflects the adverse impact of liquidated damages in the Oman Desalination JV.

For FY 2017 the company expects revenue in the range of Rs 3000-Rs 3200 crore.

For FY 2017 Order Intake is expected to be in the range of Rs 4000-4200 crore.

The company sees good order coming from Middle East and Africa and Latin American markets like Brazil, Chile and Argentina.

Namami Gange tendering have just started. Coming quarters will see more tenders of higher ticket size.

Its Petronas project is working at brisk phase and the order is on scheduled time.

International projects have higher margins and the overall margins are sustainable.

New geographies like Latin Amreica, Africa and some market of South East Asia are seeing good big ticket order size.

Net debt is Rs 128 crore against Rs 130 crore qoq. This is despite the settlement claim the company paid for Al-Gubrah project.

Gross debt is Rs 200 crore.

Receivable in India is Rs 1000 crore and on consolidated basis it is Rs 1600 crore.

Substantial portion of its order book is in industrial and in international geographies. Thus margins will continue to improve. Dollar appreciation is also helping the company in margin expansion.

Working capital days in Sept 2016 end was 98 days. This improved marginally to 95-96 end of December 2016.

Every year, Water and Wastewater International (WWi) invites the global water industry to vote for the 25 Global Water Leaders and Rajiv Mittal, CEO of Va Tech Wabag was nominated for the first time and straightaway was ranked Number two.