Margin over fat order book: tracking GR Infra’s journey from a village with no roads to highways

Vinod Kumar Agarwal, executive chairman, GR infra

Synopsis
For a company of GR Infraprojects’ size, the call to refrain from taking low-margin orders has always been tough. But the company is sticking to its guns. Even during FY12-FY15, when revenue stagnated and profits shrunk, its investors didn't lose faith because of the financial discipline of the management. What’s the secret sauce?

1965. India was at war with Pakistan, its GDP growth rate was sagging at -2.6%, and GDP per capita was a puny USD119. Defence spending (1965/1966) was 24.06% of expenditure — a record around that time — and building infrastructure was least of India’s priority. Larsen & Toubro (L&T) was still run by Henning Holck-Larsen, its Danish founder, and was far from becoming one of the top 25 companies in the country. The India story was anything