GQG Partners has been a net buyer of over $2 billion of fresh Indian equities between January and March this year, which is roughly the same as it invested in entire 2024, chairman Rajiv Jain said on CNBC-TV18 during an interaction on May 26.
"Last year we bought may be just under $2 billion of net new money in India. This year, in the first quarter alone, we have put around $2 billion to work - new money over our extending exposures," said Rajiv Jain.
"There was little bit of frothiness last summer and you saw new paper coming through - selling by promoters, IPOs and so on - and for 6-7 months there was a very healthy correction which is sometimes called for, kind of a pause and refresh. We have been net buyers in India this year and have been far more aggressive in the first quarter than the last year," Jain added.
Jain said the India's earnings and valuations this quarter have been fairly resilient as the outlook for India appears good, relative to other regions. "Valuations are kind of fine, they are not super cheap, but I won't expect that either, because the outlook is very good," said Rajiv Jain, adding that GQG remains Overweight on India.
GQG Partners said they have been big buyers in HDFC Bank and Bharti Airtel this year, and have been bullish on the utilities, real estate and infrastructure in India. Banks are a big exposure for GQG, with 'meaningful' holdings in the largecap lenders HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI, as the current leg of rally has been led by largecaps, said Jain. In fact, utilities and infrastructure are half of GQG's India book, said Rajiv Jain. The asset base at GQG Partners has almost doubled in last three years, said Jain, hence a large part of the deployment of the new money is just portfolio rebalancing.
Rajiv Jain also believes nations that are running a trade surplus with America will be far more vulnerable during this phase of trade war, which includes other major Asian economies like Vietnam. India, he said, will emerge as a 'net beneficiary', and so will Brazil and Indonesia, during Trump's efforts to bring manufacturing back to US in order to create more jobs for Americans.
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