'Modi admin has done a phenomenal job': Blackstone's Jon Gray on what changed in India

India is getting "closer and closer" to a tipping point where its growth rate could accelerate further, according to Blackstone President Jon Gray.

"It takes time to get to a stage where you can really begin to expand your growth rate," Gray said in an interview with Bloomberg Television's Wall Street Week. "And I do feel like India is getting closer and closer to that tipping point."

Blackstone's India journey did not begin with the same confidence.

Gray recalled that the firm entered India with a small team and no clearly defined strategy. The global financial crisis then made it even harder to make investments work.

"We had sort of a skeleton crew. We didn’t really have a great defined strategy," he said. "We couldn’t make the numbers work. So we did basically nothing. "We said, 'You know what? We just need a better approach.'"

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The firm eventually shifted toward majority or equal-control stakes and focused on sectors such as information-technology services, commercial real estate, and domestic manufacturing.

The change has paid off. Gray said India has produced Blackstone's highest private-equity returns in the world.

India has also moved sharply up the global economic rankings. Its GDP has grown almost fivefold to $3.69 trillion since it was ranked No. 14 globally in a 2005 World Bank report. It is now the world's fourth-largest economy.

Gray said India's large and educated population remains a major part of the investment case. He said infrastructure had held India back for years. That included not only physical infrastructure but also the country’s legal and capital markets systems.

"The real issue that has held India back for a long time was the infrastructure in the country. And it wasn’t just the physical infrastructure. It was the legal, the capital markets infrastructure," he said.

The Blackstone President credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration with doing a "phenomenal job" in improving those areas. "A lot of things are falling into place," he said.

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US-India Ties

Gray acknowledged that the relationship between the US and India still faces friction, including over tariffs and higher energy costs resulting from the US war with Iran. "There will be bumps," he said.

But he said the broader trajectory of US-India ties has consistently moved toward closer relations as India deepens its engagement with capitalism. He said that trend has held regardless of which US political party is in power.