Rajiv Jain, chairman and chief investment officer of GQG Partners, who invested $1.9 billion into Adani Group, believes the company should not change anything to please the market.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, he said he believes his investors were not likely to have been surprised by their investment in the Adani group companies, as he felt that these investments were remarkably good assets run by a competent promoter.
Jain told CNBC-TV18 that it would be a 'mistake' for the conglomerate to slow down to manage the debt levels.
Jain invested in the conglomerate at the time when it was dealing with allegations of stock manipulation and accounting fraud by the US-based short seller Hindenburg Research.
“The objective is to keep growing. It will be a mistake to slow down to get the debt level down. I think these businesses (are) supposed to be leveraged,” Jain told the market channel.
Dismissing the allegations of fraud and manipulation in Adani Group companies as political taint, Jain said that the underlying businesses of the conglomerate are extremely robust.
According to Jain, the context of these allegations is, whether there was any intent to defraud investors or if was it a little bit optically problematic and is being cleared up.
Jain has also indicated that GQG Partners may expand their investment in the group. He believes the Indian conglomerate is not only a safe bet but also 'fantastic' and 'irreplaceable'.
However, Jain made it clear that his firm did not reach out to any regulator before making the investments but has taken the risk based on the group’s capability for earnings in the future.
Jain also noted that the execution of Adani’s infrastructure projects was quite big, and they were looking at how these assets would do in five years.
“The way we think about it is, where are the earnings going to be in 3-5 years? From that vantage point, some of the businesses are prime as the capex begins to stabilise,” he added.
