Rakesh Jhunjhunwala Thinks Modi Will Be Back In Power With A Surprise Tally

Billionaire investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala said Prime Minister Narendra Modi will come back to power in 2019.

“The Bharatiya Janata Party’s tally will surprise on the upside,” he said at the TiECON Summit in Mumbai. The country, Jhunjhunwala said, must do good social welfare without “leakage” and Modi’s policies are the “correct” ones and will help bring prosperity.

Key Highlights

India’s Growth Graph

Jhunjhunwala said India is in the most favourable phase of its economic demographic evolution for the next 30 years. The country’s growth path, he said, cannot be interrupted. “India has the right factors of growth—skills, demography, democracy, entrepreneurship, natural resources.”

The IL&FS crisis, however, reflected poor governance and poor awareness of credit rating, he said. “It shows that our financial sector needs some reform.”

On Recent Market Volatility

On the bloodbath in the mid caps last year, in which he lost heavily, Jhunjhunwala said investors should blame themselves for the mistake of investing at such high valuations.

He, however, quickly added that there was no fundamental issue with any of those stocks which bore the brunt of the market mayhem and the problem for investors was only high valuations

Meanwhile, he blamed the IL&FS crisis on multiple issues including lax regulation, while expressing satisfaction with the corporate governance practices in companies saying those are 5,000 times better than the olden days.

Startups A Risky Investment?

Having suffered losses on his startup bets both in 2000 and 2007, Jhunjhunwala said he does not see any value putting money in startups both from investment or business perspectives. “Many of them talk about innovation, [but] there is little uniqueness in them and many of them are like 'me-too' companies."

‘Investing Is A Full-Time Job’

Terming investing as a serious business, he advised non-professional investors like the salaried class to invest through the mutual funds route and keep aside not more than 10 percent for self-investing if excitement is what they are looking for. “Making an investment is not easy and needs full-time attention.”

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With inputs from PTI