- Rajiv Jain made a big bet on Gautam Adani's business empire last month.
- He told Bloomberg Monday that he believes his $1.9 billion investment could deliver 100% returns over the next five years.
Investing in Gautam Adani's companies could generate massive returns over the next five years, according to an emerging markets specialist who made a big bet on the Indian tycoon's troubled business empire last month.
Rajiv Jain poured $1.9 billion into four of the Adani Group's ten listed companies last month – and said Monday that he thinks the value of his investment could double over the next half-decade.
"These could be multibaggers," the GQG Partners CIO told Bloomberg, referring to stocks that deliver returns of 100% or more.
Adani has lost as much as $153 billion worth of market capitalization since short-seller Hindenburg Research released a scathing report in January that alleged the conglomerate had engaged in stock manipulation and accounting fraud to perpetrate what it called "the largest con in corporate history", according to data from Bloomberg.
The Indian conglomerate has repeatedly dismissed Hindenburg's report, saying it includes "misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations".
Jain agreed with those denials and is betting that Adani's coal-mining assets, data centers, and majority stake in Mumbai's international airport will deliver returns for GQG.
"If you peel the onion a little bit further, we didn't find any signs of fraud or anything like that," Jain told Bloomberg TV in an interview that aired Monday.
"If you look at the longer-term opportunities that these companies have, it's tremendous," he added. "These are very well run assets, unique assets, monopolistic assets."
"And obviously, there was a little bit of crisis and we believe that that creates a massive, longer-term headroom for these businesses and opportunity for us."