Adani Got 'Clean Chit' From Supreme Court Panel, Says GQG's Rajiv Jain — BQ Exclusive

GQG Partners' chief Rajiv Jain has said he was "not exactly surprised" with the Supreme Court panel's report in the Adani-Hindenburg saga as a lot of things were investigated earlier.

"...They got completely clean chit," Jain, chairperson at GQG Partners LLC, said in an interview with BQ Prime's Niraj Shah. "A lot of things that are being investigated have been investigated before," he said. "It has kind of become a political football more than real economics, substantive issue."

Jain said his firm has bought into a group led by "an entrepreneur who does a phenomenally good job in execution".

On a cost basis, GQG Partners has invested $2.3–2.4 billion in the conglomerate owned by billionaire Gautam Adani, according to Jain. "We were getting fantastic assets at very attractive valuation then."

Jain's firm initially invested about $1.9 billion (Rs 15,446 crore) in four group companies—Adani Enterprises Ltd., Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd., Adani Transmission Ltd., and Adani Green Energy Ltd.—on March 2. It's now worth more than Rs 24,659 crore.

He is already sitting on gains worth nearly 60% on the initial investment as the Adani Group stocks have rebounded from their lows.

Jain, in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday, said that GQG Partners has increased its investment in the conglomerate's stocks by 10% and the total value at current market prices is around $3.5 billion.

The investments were made before the report by the Supreme Court panel was made public on May 19, according to Jain. The apex court-appointed panel said it did not find any regulatory failure and rejected concerns of systemic risk in the stocks following the Hindenburg Research report.

The market value of the listed group companies has rebounded 58.5% as of Tuesday since the Feb. 27 lows.