Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. shares jumped 6% on Wednesday after the state-owned engineering group said Adani Power Ltd. had awarded it orders for four thermal power projects worth up to 280 billion rupees, or about $3 billion, a sharp rebound in new business after a lean September quarter.

BHEL closed 5.96% higher at 423.85 rupees on the National Stock Exchange, according to Kotak Neo market data. Bloomberg said the intraday rise was the stock's steepest in six months. Adani Power, controlled by billionaire Gautam Adani, gained 3.2% to 201.71 rupees.

For investors across the region, the contract is evidence that India's private power producers are spending on new generating capacity, a shift Bloomberg said the deal reflected. It also extends a run that has set BHEL apart from the wider market: by Wednesday afternoon the shares had gained 47% this year, Bloomberg reported, while the Nifty 50 index was down 9%. Foreign institutions owned about 9.9% of the company and the government 58.2% at the end of September, Kotak Neo data show, a snapshot taken before foreign investors pulled 348 billion rupees from Indian stocks in October.

What BHEL Will Supply to Adani Power

In a Nov. 4 filing to the BSE and NSE, BHEL said it will supply boilers, turbines and generators, along with auxiliary equipment and agreed services, for four projects of two 800-megawatt units each. That is eight units and 6,400 MW of capacity in total.

Each contract is valued at 50 billion to 70 billion rupees before goods and services tax, which puts the package at 200 billion to 280 billion rupees. The filing named no plant sites and gave no delivery schedule, saying only that the work would follow the customer's project requirements. BHEL said the orders are not related-party transactions and that no promoter or group company has an interest in Adani Power.

The size stands out against BHEL's recent order flow. The company booked about 40 billion rupees of new orders in the July-September quarter, down from 267 billion rupees in the April-June period and 300 billion rupees in the January-March quarter, Kotak Neo reported. At the top of its range, the Adani Power package alone would be seven times that September-quarter intake. It would also equal about 81% of the 345.9 billion rupees of total income BHEL reported for the year ended March 2026, according to IANS.

Order Book and Earnings Behind BHEL's Rally

BHEL's outstanding order book stood at 2.58 trillion rupees on Sept. 30, Business Standard reported. Non-thermal work in that backlog includes 164 billion rupees of transportation orders, 136 billion rupees in transmission, 128 billion rupees in nuclear and 73 billion rupees in defense.

Earnings have picked up as the backlog turns into sales. September-quarter revenue from operations rose 23.8% from a year earlier to about 93 billion rupees, and net profit more than doubled to 8.09 billion rupees, according to Kotak Neo. The EBITDA margin widened to 11% from 7.7%.

Brokerages grew more positive after the results. Geojit Investments upgraded the stock to buy with a target of 453 rupees, saying the company's "earnings transformation warrants a valuation re-rating," Business Standard reported. ICICI Securities rates BHEL a buy with a fair value of 605 rupees and expects revenue and net profit to grow at compound annual rates of 31% and 95% over the two fiscal years to March 2028. Kotak Neo said analysts raised their earnings estimates for the next two years by about 20% to 25%.

Capital-Goods Shares Gain as IT Stocks Slip

The order came on a day when industrial shares outperformed and software exporters lagged. The Sensex rose 0.5% to 77,301.40 and the Nifty 50 gained 0.63% to 23,960.60, while the Nifty Midcap 100 climbed 1.55% and the Nifty Smallcap 100 added 2%, Kotak Neo reported. The Nifty IT index fell 1.5%, with Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies and Infosys among the Nifty 50's biggest decliners.

Other power-equipment makers also rose. Siemens Ltd. gained 3.6%, CG Power and Industrial Solutions 3.9% and Thermax 4.2%, according to Kotak Neo market data. Larsen & Toubro, India's largest engineering and construction group, reported record order inflow of 1.48 trillion rupees for the September quarter, though most of it came from abroad.

The Adani Power award arrived two days after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said India would keep spending on roads, bridges and ports while holding to fiscal discipline, according to Bloomberg. She said public investment remains important until private companies step up spending on new capacity. The central government's capital spending allocation has grown more than sixfold since fiscal 2015 to 12.2 trillion rupees for the year ending in March, Bloomberg reported.

Delivery is the next test. BHEL added 2,260 MW of generating capacity in the six months to September against a full-year target of 4,790 MW, ICICI Securities said, leaving about 2,530 MW to complete by March 31. The stock ended Wednesday about 9% below the record of 463.60 rupees it reached on Oct. 14, according to Business Standard.