'It's an Adani problem': Mark Mobius remains bullish on India

Mark Mobius remains bullish on India.

Veteran emerging market investor Mark Mobius isn't deterred by the recent slump in Adani company shares and calls it an 'Adani problem' and not India's. He said he remains bullish about India's prospects calling it 'incredible'.

Mobius reiterated his optimism about India. Mobius told Bloomberg last week that he will put more money into India saying that the “long-term future of the market is great.”

"It's an Adani problem. India is still going to go from strength to strength. It’s an incredible country with incredible prospects. I think it’s just one of the typical scandals you get in capital markets and it’ll pass," Mobius told Bloomberg.

On the now-scrapped Adani FPO, he said, “We were not interested in Adani companies because they did not meet our investment criteria, particularly as regards to debt.”

He added that his investment fund usually focusses on smaller companies.

On the issue of scrapping of the FPO, Adani stated that considering volatility of the market seen on February 1, the Board "strongly felt that it would not have been morally correct to proceed with the FPO".

"For me, the interest of my investors is paramount and everything is secondary. Hence to insulate the investors from potential losses we have withdrawn the FPO," he added.

Promoters of Adani group companies repaid $1.114 billion before time to release some pledged shares in Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone, Adani Green Energy and Adani Transmission.

This has been done "in light of recent market volatility and in continuation of the promoters’ commitment to reduce the overall promoter leverage backed by Adani listed company shares".

Big lenders like SBI and state insurer LIC have assuaged concerns around their exposure to Adani Group.

SBI had disclosed that its total loan exposure to the Adani Group stood at 0.88 percent, or Rs 270 billion, of total loans as of the quarter that ended in December. Most of these loans are secured against cash-generating assets, and no loans against shares have been provided to the group.