A Legendary investor and  Founder of DMart

Radha Kishan Damani, a low-profile trader, investor, entrepreneur and a veteran often known as “Mr. White and White”, is one of the top-notch investors in Indian market. He is the man behind the most desired retail chain DMart.

Passionate about trading and investing, he slammed the thought of becoming successful by education and qualification. He is the second richest billionaire just behind RIL’s Mukesh Ambani as of February 2020 holding the current net worth of $18.7 Billion as of December 2020.

A big name with an introverted nature, he has always kept himself away from the media limelight and makes very few appearances at public events unlike others in the market.

A humble personage, he always inspires many to be a personality whose actions speak louder than his words..There’s a saying for him that “wo itni khamoshi se kaam karte hai ki unki kamyabi shor macha deti hai”. 

Early Life

Like many, he belonged to a middle class to a middle-class family in Bikaner Rajasthan.

He was born in the year 1954 to broker father Mr. Shivkishanji Damani. He had his elder brother helping his father in the broking business. In his education journey he didn’t do much and left his BCom journey in between to start his own business.

It was then in Mumbai, he thought of ball bearing business and doing it quite well. It was after the demise of his father, when he had to leave his ball bearing business and join his brother in stockbroking. He was in his 20’s, and had no idea of stock broking.

The Investing Journey

Being a novice in the broking business in his 20’s, he preferred to speculate and observe the stock market strategies, rather than getting himself involved in trading.

He made his first investment at the age of 32 and got himself registered with SEBI. He made money from trading, and soon realized investing in the MNC can yield him profits. It was not that he was always profitable, rather he made few losses as well and learnt from his own mistakes.

In his early years he preferred to just watch and observe other players in the market and learn from them. He observed the stock-market strategies which were used by Manu Manek who was then the most prolific market operator. He made profits by investing in MNCs and trading.

In the 90’s when famous investor Harshad Mehta’s stock market was manipulating he made profits by short selling, which is selling first and buying later. He had the ability to understand the pulse of the market and take decisions accordingly.

When Harshad Mehta utilized banks money to buy stocks heavily and was converting their price on high valuation, Damani started short selling. Mehta bought ACC stocks and it reached from 200 to 9000, but their fundamentals were not justifying their hikes. He made few losses as well during this time as the stocks were increasing really high in valuation.

It was then when Damani realized that he was manipulating and he started short selling on those particular stocks on which Harshad Mehta was investing heavily, as he knew it would fall down. But when the Harshad Mehta scam was exposed he made good profit and his net worth increased.

After few years of his investing journey, he was inspired by the value investor Mr. Chandra Kant Sampat, who was becoming successful by value investing. He then started following value investing to make long term investments. He bought strong fundamental stocks at lower prices (bottom out stocks) and held them for long term to make profits, few to name are GATI, and TCI.

He had always had a vision to invest in good quality stocks in bulk, at a lower price. His farsightedness, knowledge of the market and his own instinct had helped him make good money from trading and investing. He made most of his profit from long term investment but whenever he finds short term opportunity, he utilizes them to make profits.

When all the PSU banks were flourishing, he invested in HDFC in the year 1995 and said “Dharavi will be Dharavi and Peddar Road will be Peddar Road, just wait and see”. His  farsightedness earned him big profits; he bought many shares of VST Industries at Rs. 85 in 2000, and now the rates are 3600 and more, likewise he invested in HDFC, Blue Dart, Sundaram Finance, Gillette, India Cement, GATI and few more and made huge profits through long term investment of 5 to 10 years. Mr. Damani’s strategy was buying quality stocks at a discounted price and holding them for a long term, to make big money.

Back in the year 2000- 01, when Ketan Parikh was manipulating few stocks, and increased their valuation, he again made profits by short selling.  In the same year, Damani grabbed the opportunity when the real estate business was down, he earned a good profit. Mr. Damani booked good profits from HDFC bank, GATI, Blue Dart, Sundaram Finance, Gillette, and India Cement.

Few of his major investments are GE Capital Transportation Industries, VST Industries, Simplex Infrastructure, BF Utilities, Mangalam Organics, Spencers Retail, 3M India, Sundaram Finance, CRISIL, ICRA etc. He took decisions based on the current market situation to make money. 

As per Forbes, Damani also holds a property portfolio which includes the 156-room Radisson Blu Resort in Alibaug, a popular beach-front getaway close to Mumbai.

During the quarter ended June 2020, Radhakishan Damani made a fresh entry into defense company Astra Microwave Products with 1.03 percent stake, Kalyani Group company BF Utilities with 1.3 percent and Mangalam Organics with 2.17 percent.

Consumer favourite DMart 

Mr. Damani had interest in the consumer business and was also investing those stocks. And before starting DMart he bought the franchise of cooperative retail chain “Apna bazaar”.

He laid the foundation of DMart in the year 2002, at that time real estate prices were at its low, so he utilized that opportunity and bought properties for DMart. This way he saved on the rentals and relocation of the stores.

His farsightedness benefitted him greatly and he always preferred to keep himself away from the herd and so never opened any store in the malls and all stores of DMart are owned by him. When all the market players were busy expanding their business, Damani focussed more on profitability.

Till the year 2011 he had only 25 stores all across, later he expanded and till now he has more than 200 stores all across India. Though he had money, never thought of opening a new store of DMart, without calculating its profitability as compared to the other existing stores.

This philosophy and idea are one of the key reasons that none of the DMart stores have closed so far. Veteran investor Radhakishan Damani became India’s retail king after the March 2017 IPO of his supermarket chain Avenue Supermart. Damani was the only Indian tycoon whose net worth remained unscathed as the deadly coronavirus roiled markets worldwide.

As a Mentor

Radha Kishan Damani is a simple man with high focus determination and passion towards his work. He, most of the time wears white shirt and white trouser, and hence is also famous as “Mr. White and White”. Damani was a mentor to billionaire investor, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.

Almost all look up to Mr. Jhunjhunwala for investment tips, but he himself admits that Damani is among the few mentors that he learnt the tricks of the trade from.

Damani generally does not read much, but senses the market pulse by asking people their views on it, and does the research like this. He doesn’t tell his views on the stocks, rather he considers price as everything. When the market opens he becomes bullish, and changes his attitude when the market closes.

Success Principles 

Success is often defined as consistency and persistency of doing your job. While for some it is often termed as a journey of failures and accomplishments. Mr. Damani, like every other investor, did make losses in his investments, learnt from it and made things favourable for him.

He, in his journey, played a good listener and a good observer, and this made his stature even bigger as a businessman and as an investor. 

He evolved himself as a long-term Investor, and did his investments mostly on stocks with high fundamentals. He believed in buying quality stocks at low valuation and holding them for 5 to 10 years and thus utilized the market opportunities for making big profits.

Damani also mentioned through his actions that one can make money through short selling, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala made big profits following the same short selling technique.

As a businessman, Damani always valued his customers, vendors and suppliers. His DMart stores follow the same principle and focus more on providing low-cost products with luring discounts.

He prefers to pay his vendors and suppliers mostly within one day so as to ensure he gets products at low cost and sells at a discounted rate. This is one of the reasons his stores are never out of stock. This proved to be one of the big reasons for the success of DMart stores. 

Damani as a Philanthropist 

Radhakishan Damani, the founder of Avenue Supermarts, donated some $100 crores to the PM-CARES Fund to counter the coronavirus pandemic. He also donated to many state reliefs funds with about 55 crores.

His donations to states include $10 each for Maharashtra and Gujarat, $5 each for Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Punjab and $2.5 each for Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, respectively. 

Though Mr. Damani hid himself from the press and media, he always believed in giving back to the society in his own reclusive way, without coming to the highlight. He initiated a charity and decided to share his wealth with the society by offering lodging to the families of the patients undergoing treatment at nominal rates in South Mumbai.

This facility is being run by the Shivkishan Mindaram Damani Charitable Trust that Mr. Damani’s family owns. Damani, as an introvert, shy being, does not prefer giving media interviews or attending market-related events, but he is very much known to be even more restrained in disclosing his funding for charity projects.

This values, principles and high standard of thought makes him even better human being, than as an inverter, businessman. He will continue to inspire the young generation through his capabilities, farsightedness and the outstanding business knowledge and understanding.

His life story as a successful broker, investor and as an entrepreneur is so often taken by investment institutes and firms as a case study to take valuable inputs for profit making strategies.

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