Radhakishan Damani History Maker Founder of D-Mart
According to sources in the year 1954 Radhakishan Damani was born to Shivkishanji Damani in a Marwari family in Bikaner, Rajasthan. Meanwhile his father along with his elder brother was working as stock broker on Dalal street. Unlike Rakesh Jhunjhunwal, Radhakishan Damani was not academically sound. Furthermore he got admission into B-com in Mumbai University and since no one was well educated in his family he lacked interest in study and left his study after first year of college.
Moreover Mr. Damini didn’t have much understanding on stock market so he started a speculating; buying stocks and hoping that it will go up. To the surprise of all he had to take many hits and hence soon he realized that speculation is not the best way to grow capital. Perhaps then he tried to learn investing and even after started investment he was also actively trading as he didn’t have much capital to invest.
Earlier in 1999, Damani and Damodar Mall, who is currently the CEO of Reliance Retail took Apna Bazaar franchisee. Further two years on, D-Mart was set up and it took over Apna Bazaar. Apparently all of D-Mart’s stores are in, or close to, residential areas and not in malls. Hence since it owns 90% of its stores, it ends up paying more upfront but insulates itself from rising rentals or relocation risk and that works for it because D-Mart can use its capital steadily.
Reports added DMart raised Rs. 1,870 crore by offering 6.23 crore shares priced between Rs 290-299 when opened its IPO. Meanwhile after the IPO listing, it made a record opening on the market on NSE and made Radhakishan Damani top 20 Indian billionaires. Presently Dmart accounts 91 stores spread across 26 cities including Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, and have also recently purchased a property in Rajkot. Apparently since its initiation, Dmart has not shut a single store and more recently, also became the first retailer to cross the billion dollar market profitably.