Neuberger Berman foresees huge growth in Indian healthcare industry

Conrad Saldanha, MD and Portfolio Manager of Neuberger Berman sees a lot of potential for growth in the healthcare industry, particularly in hospitals, and the financials sectors.

Among his top stock picks in the space are Max Health, and HDFC Bank.

“As you see more and more insurance starting to pay for treatments and services, 50% plus, and as that grows larger, I think it has still got a significant runway for the healthcare sector.”

HDFC Bank’s deposit growth, he noted, looks solid and the bank is also becoming more aggressive in achieving growth. Overall, it seems to have attractive fundamentals.

However, he believes that consumer goods and information technology (IT) companies might face challenges, as their earnings outlook is not very positive, and their stock prices are high.

Overall, India remains in a good position in terms of strength in earnings, manufacturing and industrials growth, and foreign direct investment, Saldanha noted.

“India is all about the earnings and the manufacturing, industrial side continues to look good, FDI investment looks pretty solid, potentially we have got Tesla in the offing here and so all that points to a pretty robust FX (forex) picture for India,” he added.

However, he also cautioned against the potential for imported inflation with rising crude oil and metal prices.

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) retained its CPI (consumer price index) inflation forecast for FY25 at 4.5% in its first policy decision for the current financial year on April 5.

The RBI’s effort will be directed at sending the ‘elephant in the room’ (inflation) back to the forest and keeping it there on a durable basis, Governor Shaktikanta Das said while announcing the policy.

The medium-term target for CPI inflation is 4% within a band of plus or minus 2%. CNBCTV18