It’s no secret that India’s premier business group, The Adani’s, has been in choppy waters since the Hindenburg report was released. With stock prices falling, Rajiv Jain’s rather astonishing decision to stake his fortune on this declining industrial conglomerate was Adani’s only glimmer of hope.
Rajiv Jain is co-founder and CIO of GQG Partners, which has $92 billion in assets under management and is best known for investing in stable, developing companies in the tobacco and energy sectors. Jain has now placed a $1.9 billion bet on Adani across four of his conglomerate’s publicly traded stocks.
Jain’s investment comes after a dramatic drop in Adani’s stock value following complaints about the company’s operations. Its flagship business, Adani Enterprises, is down 48% this year despite allegations of stock price manipulation and fraud by short seller Hindenburg, who released an in-depth study in late January. Though Adani denies the allegations, the leader of the billionaire group quickly lost his position as Asia’s richest man when shares in his eight listed companies plummeted.
But Jain claims to have read the report but also created her own and came to a different conclusion that hasn’t stopped her from investing.
Jain’s investment, announced on Thursday, gives the struggling industrialist some breathing space. Over the past week, shares in Adani Enterprises and Adani Ports are up 66% and 23%, respectively.
Emphasizing that this is a long-term investment, the visionary states that he expects returns in the “mid to high teens” and praises Adani’s infrastructure portfolio, which he believes will appreciate in value over time.
