Radhakishan Damani, D-Mart owner, enters world's 100 richest people list
The media-averse billionaire investor, who has a net worth of $19.3 billion, is ranked 97th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index list.
FollowRadhakishan Damani, the owner of DMart, has joined the list of world's top 100 wealthiest individuals. The media-averse billionaire investor, who has a net worth of $19.3 billion, is ranked 97th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index list. He was ranked 117th on the global list of billionaires in the year and was the fourth richest Indian, with a net worth of $16.5 billion.
Gautam Adani, Mukesh Ambani, Lakshmi Mittal, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, and Pallonji Mistry are the other Indians on the coveted list.
The hesitant stock market trader who built a name in the 1990s by investing in value-oriented stocks before entering the organised retail sector with the flagship brand DMart has seen his fortune rise by $4.3 billion, or 28 per cent, so far in 2021. A large portion of the profits has been led by Damani's most significant stake, Avenue Supermarts, whose shares have risen 32 per cent so far in 2021.
Despite spending much of his time on DMart, Damani continues to make individual investments. He is known for keeping a low profile and seldom grants media interviews.  Damani was reared in a one-room flat in Mumbai by a Marwari family. He studied commerce at the University of Mumbai for a year before dropping out.
After his father's death, Damani quit his ball-bearing company, who operated on Dalal Street, and became a stock market trader and investor. After the Harshad Mehta Scam was exposed in 1992, he experienced a significant increase in his income due to the short-selling gains he made at the time. He left the stock market in 2000 to launch his hypermarket chain, DMart, with the first shop opening in Powai in 2002. In 2010, the chain had 25 locations; since then, the firm has expanded significantly and gone public in 2017.
