Who is Rajiv Jain, and how he built his $92 billion empire at GQG Partners

Jain's career as a portfolio manager started in 1994 when he joined Vontobel Asset Management

The promoters of the Adani Group on Thursday sold shares worth Rs 15,446 crore to GQG Partners, a US-based global equity-investment company. While making the announcement, Rajiv Jain, chairman and chief investment officer (CIO) at GQG, said that the long-term prospects of the Adani Group companies are substantial.

"We believe that the long-term growth prospects for these companies are substantial, and we are pleased to be investing in companies that will help advance India's economy and energy infrastructure, including their energy transition over the long run," he said.

GQG is one of the world's leading market investors; as of January, it manages assets worth $92 billion. Despite this, Jain has been a relatively lesser-known man. He does not have a Twitter account and rarely appears on television.

Who is Rajiv Jain?

Jain was born and brought up in India. In 1990, he moved to the US to pursue an MBA at the University of Miami. His career as a portfolio manager started in 1994 when he joined Vontobel Asset Management. Gradually, he came to be known as the "star manager" at Vontobel. He rose to the rank of CIO and the head of equities at Vontobel.

Later, between 2014 and 2016, he served as the company's co-CEO. By the time he left Vontobel, according to Bloomberg, its Emerging Market Fund had returned 70 per cent in 10 years. 

In 2016, Jain founded GQG Partners and took up the role of its chairman and CIO. 

Describing him, a Bloomberg report said, "He plunks down huge sums of money on individual stocks and, in a heartbeat, can bail on an entire position — the sort of bold moves most in the industry avoid. Moreover, in talking with him, it quickly becomes clear that he doesn't make much of his rival stock-pickers".

He considers himself a "quality growth manager". 

His portfolio does not have many stocks of "driverless car companies" or "hypersonic missile manufacturers", but he makes huge bets on oil, tobacco and banking. He believes that by loading up on companies with strong, "bullet-proof" balance sheets, it is unlikely that the portfolio will suffer a sudden collapse.

Also, he invests in 40 to 50 large-cap stocks in his international fund, compared with the benchmark's more than 2,000 companies.

"Investing is a game of survival because most people won't survive in the long run," Jain told Bloomberg. "So that should be the mindset rather than trying to win all the time. It's as much about avoiding losing rather than trying to win."