Davos 2024: Macro Fundamentals, Improved Liquidity Makes Jefferies Bullish On India

Solid foundation building through reforms on the macro level and improved liquidity in the local market is making overseas investors bullish on India, according to senior executives at global banking giant Jefferies.

"The strongest pushback on India has been the depth of markets, liquidity, size and scale," Aashish Agarwal, the India head of the bank, told NDTV Profit's Niraj Shah on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum 2024 in Davos.

"Liquidity has improved significantly. Jefferies India has been involved in diverse deals, ranging from half a billion to a range of $2 billion in a single stock. People have the visibility to deploy large ticket sizes, unlike earlier," he said.

Agarwal said the real estate and power sectors are seeing a strong pick-up and domestic savings are projected to continue its upward trajectory this year.

Mahesh Nandurkar, head of research and managing director at Jefferies India Pvt., said central and state government officials who have camped in the Swiss town are trying to understand the bottlenecks and investor concerns. "This will improve the ease of doing business and investment going forward."

"We have seen a solid foundation built by way of GST and bankruptcy law; the corporate leverage level is at an all-time low. The housing cycle is looking up," he said.

Among the themes that are drawing attention at Davos for India are talent-to-tech patterns in artificial intelligence and garments, he said.

"In the listed space, there is diversity in India—from consumption to exports—compared to other emerging markets," Nandurkar said.

Watch the full conversation here: