Aapke muh me ghee aur shakkar’: When Nilesh Shah wrote to Jim Rogers, advising him not to ignore India

In 2015, ace investor Jim Rogers sold his holdings in Indian companies and exited India because he was “not sure of India’s economic recovery and performance”.

Two years later Nilesh Shah wrote an open letter to him, citing facts on why Rogers should reconsider his decision and invest back.

The veteran American investor is now ‘advocating’ everyone to invest in India to become rich. “What a transformation in seven years,” the MD of Kotak AMC posted on X on Tuesday.

“I would suggest people look at Indian equities if they want to be rich because there are lots of really smart Indians all over the world. If you can find some of those smart Indians you are going to make a lot of money,” Rogers said in a chat with Business Today.

“Let Americans buy bond, you buy equities,” he said.

Rogers said India is in a sweet spot at the moment, and it has the potential to be “even better in the future’ if the government can keep delivering on its promises. “For the first time in my life, I am beginning to think that they (the Indian government) are getting it right.”

“And maybe, things are going to change, so India’s going to be even better in the future than it is now. So if Mr. Modi does what he says he is going to do, wow, India is going to be even more astonishing than it is now,” Rogers added.

Rogers view is in sharp contrast from what he had said in 2015 when he decided to exit India. Then Rogers had blamed the lack of reforms for his decision to quit India.

“I did sell my India shares as I don’t see anything happening. The market was high, and investors had anticipated great things, including me-even if he (PM Modi) were to do things, the market had already discounted some of that because it had gone up a lot…You can’t just invest on hope,” Rogers had told the Mint newspaper then.