Baron India Fund

Bharti Airtel Limited (BHARTI.IN) is a leading telecommunications company, with operations in 18 countries across Asia and Africa. The company's offerings include wireless, mobile commerce, and fixed line. 
Bharti is a top three player in the Indian telecommunications industry. With more than 30% market share, it is well positioned to benefit from rising smartphone penetration and 4G services in India. The company should continue to gain market share from Vodafone India, which is on the brink of bankruptcy and will likely need to raise mobile tariffs by more than 50% to remain a viable entity. We expect earnings to generate mid-teens growth over the next three to five years, with further upside from its broadband and enterprise businesses.

HDFC Bank Limited (HDFCB.IN) is one of India's largest and most recognized private sector banks, offering a broad range of financial services to retail and commercial clients. It merged with parent company HDFC Ltd. in July 2023.
We see HDFC Bank as the best quality play in Indian financials, given its history of consistent returns and best-in-class management. The bank has a solid deposit franchise and healthy asset quality, which gives it a competitive advantage in funding. HDFC Bank’s significant investments in technology place it as a leader in digital banking, which should drive continued market share expansion and efficiency improvements.

Reliance Industries Limited (RELIANCE.IN) is India's leading conglomerate, with business interests that include oil refining, petrochemicals, media, telecommunications, and retail.
We believe Reliance is positioned to leverage its telecommunications network to transform into a digital services company, offering products such as video streaming, broadband, and e-commerce services. The company is also laying the groundwork to create an online marketplace that will connect over 12 million mom-and-pop retailers to over 400 million mobile and internet subscribers. We believe earnings will sustain high double-digit growth over the next three to five years.

Precision Wires India Limited

Max Healthcare Institute Limited (MAXHEALT.IN) is the second-largest hospital chain in India. It operates more than 5,000 beds across its network of 22 health care facilities.
Max Healthcare has best-in-class operational metrics among Indian hospitals, driven by its status as a high-end specialty care provider and focus on cost management and return metrics. Over the past four years, management has focused on cost cutting. The company has now entered an expansion phase, planning to double its bed count from fiscal 2023 to fiscal 2027. Improving payor mix, entry into new geographies, growth in medical tourism, and an asset-light operations and management model could further boost average revenue per occupied bed and return on capital employed.

ICICI Bank Limited (ICICIBC.IN) is India’s second-largest private-sector bank, known for its strong capital base and attractive liability franchise. The bank is focused on the retail segment, which is under-penetrated and provides a long runway for growth.
ICICI Bank’s profitability is improving due to favorable trends in asset quality, margins, and costs. We are encouraged by management's focus on enhancing the customer journey, partnering with other fintechs via an open architecture, using data analytics to better tailor product offerings, and modernizing its mobile banking app into a superapp that serves diverse customer needs. We believe these initiatives will allow ICICI to gain share, improve efficiency, and narrow the valuation gap versus other high-quality, private-sector banks in India.

Bajaj Finance Limited (BAF.IN) is a leading non-banking financial corporation in India. It offers various financial products and services including housing loans, consumer durables financing, small- and medium-sized enterprise credit, and rural loans.  
We believe Bajaj is well positioned to benefit from growing demand for consumer financial services in India. The company's data analytics platform is a key competitive advantage that enables it to earn high risk-adjusted returns (return on equities can sustain 20% to 22%, in our view). Bajaj is quickly becoming India's largest fintech player by creating an ecosystem of apps offering insurance, brokerage, and wealth management, among many other new products and services. We expect Bajaj to grow earnings by roughly 25% over the next five years.

Eternal Limited (ZOMATO.IN) is India's leading food delivery platform, with roughly 55% market share. The company also has a quick commerce business.
Eternal is well positioned to benefit from structural growth in online food delivery in India. The industry has become a duopoly between Swiggy and Eternal, which bodes well for future profitability and scale. In our view, the company should generate revenue growth of more than 30% over the next three to five years.

InterGlobe Aviation Limited (INDIGO.IN), known as IndiGo, is India’s largest airline operator, with over 60% market share in the duopolistic domestic aviation market. With a fleet of over 430 aircraft, IndiGo provides low-cost connections to more than 85 domestic and 35 international destinations.
IndiGo has been a key beneficiary of industry consolidation in the aftermath of the pandemic and ongoing supply-chain challenges that have disproportionately impacted smaller competitors. We are excited about the growing demand for air travel in India, the improving pricing discipline in the market, and IndiGo’s vision to expand its international destination network. We expect IndiGo to deliver 15% to 20% compounded EBITDA growth over the next three to five years.

Bharat Electronics Limited (BHE.IN), known as BEL, is a leading defense electronics manufacturer in India, with approximately 60% market share. It is the second-largest Defense Public Sector Undertaking under the Ministry of Defense. The company develops equipment and systems for defense communications, radars, and tank electronics.
BEL has consistently invested in in-house research and development while implementing cost-reduction measures, resulting in an industry-leading profitability profile. In our view, the company is well positioned to benefit from the Indian government’s initiatives promoting defense indigenization. We also see additional growth drivers from India’s rising defense budget and expanding export and non-defense opportunities. We expect BEL to deliver 15% to 20% compounded earnings growth over the next three to five years.