I’ve just returned from a few days in Mumbai with Andreas Brock and Johan Agneman, meeting companies and investors. Over the years, I’ve made similar field trips to multiple countries to understand local dynamics, opportunities, and risks. They have consistently delivered insights that sharpen investment decisions—either by identifying alpha or reducing risk.
Arriving on the night flight from Almaty, it was immediately clear that my first business trip to India would offer far more diversity and complexity than any prior impressions based on holidays, media coverage and research reports.
India is a land of huge opportunities and 2026 looks promising as the credit cycle accelerates
My initial reflections on India centre on the sheer number of faces seen in this country of 1.4 billion people - hence the idea of an opportunity with many contrasts. India defies simple categorisation. It is a country with wide variations in wealth and living standards, intense noise and pollution, and highly capable business leaders navigating India’s financial markets and building value creating companies. One small example: Tesla’s self driving technology would struggle here. I didn’t see a single Tesla, and Mumbai’s chaotic, ever honking traffic would require an extraordinary sensor suite to avoid collisions. Yet the traffic flows—drivers have an impressive sense of spatial awareness and vehicle control in extremely tight conditions. The same goes for Indian business leaders and investors navigating in India. Companies are growing fast and in our meeting with ICICI Bank it was clear that the credit cycle is turning for the better which is likely to boost the country´s GDP in 2026 and 2027.
Earnings for Nifty index are after a lacklustre 3% growth in 2025 expected to show faster pace of 7% growth in 2026 and 14% in 2027. The monetary contraction in prior years has brought valuations down and hence the forward return profile for India looks attractive
I especially enjoyed meeting HDFC Asset Management
On the investment side, India offers an attractive long term return profile. Still, international investors have withdrawn roughly USD 20 billion over the past 12 months, driven partly by US tariff penalties linked to India’s purchases of sanctioned Russian oil and by emerging market capital rotating into AI related plays in North East Asia. As a result, India’s equity market has moved sideways in USD terms for almost two years, despite solid economic growth, rising earnings, and easing monetary conditions. Outflows could easily become inflows as perceptions changes and this can create tailwinds for our holding, HDFC Asset Management, which stands to benefit from significant number of new customers, inflows into their funds and, eventually, renewed international inflows which could lead to solid share price performance driven by earnings growth. Our meeting with the CFO and his IR team was most inspiring and it is clear that the brand of HDFC is hugely important when it comes to attracting and retaining investment management talent.
There is plenty of work ahead to digest the impressions and data from this trip. More findings to be shared here and in interaction with Brock Milton investors in the coming months.
