Construction Sector on Road to Recovery

India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) has maintained a stable outlook on the construction sector for FY18, driven by the expectation that the slow but steady increase in revenue and improvement in EBITDA margins seen during FY16 and 1HFY17 will continue in FY18. The sector is likely to witness a gradual improvement in credit metrics, although constrained by the companies under debt restructuring showing no signs of recovery.   The sector has seen improvement in liquidity position, with a significant improvement in cash flow from operations (CFO) in FY16, although it continued to remain negative. Liquidity is likely to improve further, with CFO improving over FY17-FY18 to reach near-zero levels. A positive CFO is imperative for the sector to fund its working capital, as bank credit growth to the sector plunged over FY16-FY17. However, maintaining improvement in cash flows over the medium-term would depend on a prudent accumulation of orders.   Order inflow is likely to grow in FY18, primarily driven by increased public investment in transport and urban infrastructures, power transmission, and water and irrigation projects. The overall allocation for roads, housing and electrification increased 18 per cent YoY in the Union Budget 2017-18. However, the allocation for the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund continues to be low. The fund was expected to leverage the initial funding multifold for investment and provide a stimulus to the infrastructure sector, which will not happen in FY18.   The sale of public private partnership projects in the roads sector has increased significantly during 2016, which is likely to continue in 2017. This may aid in deleveraging of balance sheets of construction companies. However, this will continue to remain a buyers’ market, given the significant demand and supply mismatch.   Outlook Sensitivities Improvement in Cash Flows: The sector outlook could be revised to positive, if there is a continued improvement in cash flow margins, and thus improved credit metrics.   Increase in Debt Intensity: The sector outlook could be revised to negative, if the companies shift their focus back to public private partnership projects, leading to an increase in capital intensity without adequate equity infusions. Accumulation of large order books leading to a liquidity squeeze could also lead to the sector outlook being revised to negative.