India has vastly expanded infrastructure under Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his bid to lure global capital and supply lines away from Beijing.
Investors are pulling billions of dollars from China and heading to India with Wall Street giants such as Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley endorsing the South Asian nation as the prime investment destination for the next decade.
The $62 billion hedge fund Marshall Wace has positioned India as its biggest net long bet after the US in its flagship hedge fund. An arm of Zurich-based Vontobel Holding AG has made the country its top emerging-market holding and Janus Henderson Group Plc is exploring fund-house acquisitions. Even Japan’s traditionally conservative retail investors are embracing India and paring exposure to China, according to a Bloomberg report.
“People are interested in India for several reasons — one is simply it’s not China,” Vikas Pershad, Asian equities portfolio manager at M&G Investments in Singapore told the agency.
“There’s a genuine long-term growth story here.”
Aniket Shah, global head of environment, social and governance practice at Jefferies Group LLC., said a recent investor call about India was one of the firm’s best-attended.
“People are really trying to figure out what’s going on in India,” he said.
India has vastly expanded infrastructure under Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his bid to lure global capital and supply lines away from Beijing.
In the US exchange-traded fund market, the main fund buying Indian stocks received record inflows in the final quarter of 2023, while the four largest China funds combined saw outflows of almost $800 million. Active bond funds have put 50 cents to work in India for every dollar they pulled from China since 2022, according to EPFR data.