Many of us already know Radha Kishan Damani or RK Damani as an Indian entrepreneur, investor, India’s 5th richest man, and mainly as the owner and founder of the mega-retail chain stores D-mart we find all over the country. However, today we will read about his success story, all the way from Dalal Street to being one of the wealthiest persons in the country.
D-mart owner Radha Kishan Damani was born on 15th March 1954 and came from a very traditional and normal Indian Marwari family. He was born and brought up in Bikaner, Rajasthan, and is one of the few self-made billionaires in the country and is still very down to earth.
He was pursuing a degree in Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Mumbai, from which he dropped out to enter the stock market. He always backed himself up and believed that he had a knack for business.
However, when he was 32 years old, his father passed away, and he started working as a stockbroker in his family business. Many would say that he was a little late to start his business journey, as many start in their 20s. But, that would never let RK Damani stop from reaching the heights he has reached today.
Starting his journey as a stockbroker, RK Damani quickly realized that if he needed to take the amount of money he wanted, he needed to start trading his own money in the market. There started the journey, which made him the mentor of the veteran investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.
When RK Damani started trading his own money, he made a lot of profits, more than he imagined when he started. He is always a very flexible trader, as he uses many different market swings. We all have heard and maybe even seen all about the Harshad Mehta scam. Damani made a lot of money during that by short-selling the stocks, which was something no one else thought of doing.
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However, when he learned about Chandrakant Sampat and learned more about his investing strategies, he changed his approach and is now a long-term investor. His portfolio can work as a great insight tool for any individual already investing or interested in investing.
Apart from trading, RK Damani was also very interested in consumer retails, and that is how in the year 2002, we saw the first D-mart store in suburban Mumbai. This does not come as a surprise when we find out that this was a very well-planned move by him.
D-mart decided to go public in March 2017 and offered its first initial public offering (IPO) under ‘Avenue Supermarts,’ which is its parent company. This move panned out just the way Damani wanted it to, as the IPO was a huge hit.
Avenue supermart initially offered its shares to the public for Rs 299 and got listed at Rs 604 after over-subscription. Currently, the shares of Avenue Supermarts are trading at Rs. 3,602 per share, as of 17th May 2022.
