2020 U.S. Election Results: For India, It Doesn’t Matter Who Wins, IIFL’s Nirmal Jain Says
“All things put together, I don’t think it makes much of a difference to India,” said Nirmal Jain.
While the outcome of a hard-fought U.S. presidential race comes down to a handful of states, IIFL Group’s Nirmal Jain said it doesn’t matter if Joe Biden or Donald Trump are elected—as far as India is concerned.
From trade policy or H1-B visa point of view, Biden has a more favourable stance, while Trump has a more vociferous stance towards China and Pakistan, the founder and chairman at the financial services provider said in an interview to BloombergQuint’s Niraj Shah. “All things put together, I don’t think it makes much of a difference to India except that how stable the global markets are because that will determine the flow of capital to India.”
Biden has so far won 264 electoral votes against 214 for Trump, according to Bloomberg. The first candidate to reach the 270-mark will claim presidency. “It looks like Biden will come to power,” Jain said, adding that he will provide more stability to the markets.
At any rate, he expects India to become an investment destination for the global markets because of the relatively higher interest rates and strong economic rebound.
Other key highlights:
- Economy is rebounding very well, much stronger than what people expected.
- Three things helping real estate markets: pent-up demand, lower interest rates, and reduced stamp duty reduced in Maharashtra.
- New developers now that they see refinancing can be difficult, have reduced home prices.
- “India housing penetration is still low so we have to see that grow.”
- Financing of real estate properties will change. Instead of NBFCs, “we will see private equity funds or equity of larger companies. And construction phase onwards maybe banks will step in”.
- “All other business of our group have done pretty well so we are fortunate.”
- From industry point of view, BFSI is good.
- Insurance and AMCs will also do well because India will bounce back and it will benefit them.
- Growth in lending lending side of financials will see stable growth, non-lending will be relatively more volatile.
- IIFL’s loan unit grew 7% in the quarter ended September. It’s likely to grow 20-30% sequentially in the quarter ending December.
Watch the full conversation here: