Few investors anywhere in the world this year have likely timed their trade as well as Rajiv Jain.
The sharp rebound in listed stocks of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has proved to be a windfall for the emerging-market investor, just nine months after his firm GQG Partners Inc. bought into the Indian conglomerate.
The combined market value of the 10 companies controlled by the Ahmedabad-headquartered Adani Group has increased by more than $79 billion since the purchase by GQG on March 2. Jain acquired Adani shares weeks after a shortseller report had battered the ports-to-power conglomerate and wiped out more $150 billion in market value.
Flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd. and two other group firms have more than doubled from the price GQG paid for them. The value of its investments in the Adani Group, initially about $1.9 billion with some more purchased along the way, has risen to more than $7 billion as of last week, according to the firm.
“We remain excited about the fundamentals of each of these businesses,” Sudarshan Murthy, a portfolio manager at GQG, said in an interview this week, adding that the investment firm had been net buyers of Adani stocks this quarter.
Murthy, who co-manages some of the GQG funds along with Jain, declined to comment on the profits made from investments in the Adani conglomerate.
Jain’s investment — which came near the trough of the Adani stock meltdown — has been boosted by a rally in this week after the conglomerate’s green energy unit secured a $1.4 billion loan and a Bloomberg News report said US government found shortseller Hindenburg Research’s allegations irrelevant while advancing a $553 loan for Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd.’s Sri Lanka project.
That news is “a big deal,” Murthy said, commenting on the US government’s stance.
Adani Group’s stocks also saw a relief rally in its shares late last month after India’s top court said it won’t take scathing media reports on the conglomerate as the “gospel truth” even as it reserved verdict on its probe into Hindenburg’s allegations.
In recent months, the conglomerate has successfully refinanced a $3.5 billion loan as well as acquired a local cement maker, demonstrating its ability to bounce back after the Hindenburg broadside in January that accused the conglomerate of accounting fraud and stock price manipulation.
The Adani Group, whose market value is still about $60 billion short of the pre-Hindenburg level, has strongly denied these allegations.
Jain, who cut against the grain when he bought Adani shares in March, told Bloomberg in an April interview that these investments “could be multibaggers” over five years.
GQG holds an equity stake in Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports, Adani Green Energy Ltd., Adani Power Ltd., Adani Energy Solutions Ltd. and Ambuja Cements Ltd.
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