Know the story of the second richest Indian – Radhakishan Damani

When we hear the terms- richest Indians, surnames such as Ambanis, Tatas, Birlas etc. come into the mind. However, these is one more name which is very soon likely to join this list and you must know about- its Damani.

Radhakishan Damani, is now the second richest Indian after Mukesh Ambani.

Damani who hails from an average Indian Marwari family, is the founder of Avenue Supermarts Limited, the registered name for D-Mart chain of hypermarkets. He is an astute stock market investor and is now the second richest Indian along with his brother with a net worth of $17.8 billion according to Forbes Real-time billionaires index.

The Rags to Riches Story

Damani is a stock market investor and was also a mentor to the well-known trader and investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. He started his entrepreneur journey after founding Avenue Supermarts in 2002. The company under the brand name of D-Mart started its first hypermarket in Powai, Mumbai and has been growing since then with over 200 stores as of now in multiple Indian states. Damani started his journey from a single room and had incurred huge losses twice before earning the title of the 2nd richest Indian. In the early days, he used to personally visit distributors and wholesalers and worked in striking long term deals with them. He would many a times travel across the globe to source apparels and other similar items.

Damani who is referred to as the “Great Bear” has moved 15 spots in the list of richest Indian billionaires in a span of less than 2 years. D-mart was listed on the exchange on 21st March 2017 with a market capitalization of 39.988 crore INR. The stock prices have been rising ever since with a hike of over 290%! The market capitalization of D-mart as of now is over 1.5 lakh crore INR!

The stock prices have rallied 7 times after the IPO, Damani was forced to reduce his stake in the company by regulators, which means that people had to buy shares from the Great Bear, who has never got it wrong. Damani was a billionaire overnight after he sold his stake in the primary market.

Summing it up together for $17.8 billion

Apart from Avenue Supermarts, he also holds stake in various other companies including the leading beer maker, United Breweries Limited. He snatched the title of the ‘King of the Retail Business’ from Kishore Biyani, the founder of Future Group. He entered the list of the richest Indian in 2014 based on his blue-chip investments, retail business and real estate holdings.

Damani overtook HCL’s Shiv Nadar with a net worth of $ 16.5 billion along with Uday Kotak with a worth of $ 15 billion and Lakshmi Mittal with a worth of $ 12 billion. The shares of his company have rallied over 31% in this year.

Reliance Retail, which is controlled by the richest Indian, Mukesh Ambani with a net worth of over $ 57 billion is the direct competitor to Damani’s Avenue Supermarts Ltd. As per the inputs of some analysts, the rising price of the stocks is an alarming situation and can put the investment to risk in some by affecting the growth of the company.

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