PineBridge Looks Past Adani Group Saga To Load Up On Stocks In India

PineBridge Investments is using India’s recent market selloff to start buying stocks for its multi-asset portfolios.

PineBridge is majority-owned by a subsidiary of Pacific Century Group (PCG), an Asia-based private investment group.

It seems to wager that explosive corporate governance allegations against the Adani conglomerate won’t derail a growth and manufacturing boom.

Michael Kelly, who oversees Pinebridge’s $17.8 billion global multi-asset portfolios, is among those going the other way.

The short-seller Hindenburg Research’report about Gautam Adani has been the reason investors have pulled billions of dollars out of Indian markets.

According to PineBridge’s management committee, “The stock meltdown offered an entry point into what’s historically an expensive market”. Their funds were not in Indian stocks before the rout in Adani securities, but they have since been bought, Michael Kelly said, adding that “we are not necessarily done”.

Noting massive US corporate bankruptcies in 2001-2002 that were triggered by fraudulent accounting practices at Worldcom and Enron, Michael Kelly said, “Corporate governance risks such as those highlighted by Hindenburg exist not just in emerging markets”.

He further said, “If you shine a spotlight, you will find things. You can never say there is only one cockroach. In the US there was Worldcom and then another cockroach called Enron”.

“In India, we think we can buy an accelerating three-four-year growth picture at a reasonable price,” Kelly added.

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