Don't change anything to please market, Rajiv Jain tells Adani Group

Chairman of GQG Partners says group has 'remarkably good assets'

Adani Group’s white knight investor Rajiv Jain, chairman and chief investment officer of GQG Partners, believes it would be a “mistake” for the conglomerate to “slowdown to manage the debt levels”.

Backing his bet in the group, Jain advised the company to not change anything to please the market.

“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 said in an interview with television channel CNBC-TV18 on Monday.

Jain’s firm infused $1.9 billion into the embattled Indian conglomerate at a time when it has been dealing with allegations of stock manipulation and accounting fraud levelled by US-based short seller Hindenburg Research. The group has denied the allegations. GQG Partners became the first major investor in four of the companies of Adani Group after the short-seller’s report.

“The context of these allegations is, was there the intent to defraud investors or was it a little bit of optically problematic and is being cleared up,” said Jain.

Earlier this month, Jain had indicated that GQG Partners may expand their investment in the group.

Appreciating the group’s position to deliver complex projects, Jain added, “We believe that these are remarkably good assets run by an extremely competent promoter.”

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.

“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.