If there’s a discussion on all the successful businessmen of our country, common names such as Tata, Ambani and Birla become the front runners. These are the names on everybody’s fingertips. These business veterans have taken several decades to imprint their names on every person’s heart. But with time many more people have made their entry in this elite list of successful and great industrialists. There are many such people who started from zero and reached the highest point of success with their sheer hard work. They even gave stiff competition and move shoulder-to-shoulder with Ambani and Birla. Surprisingly, we do not even know the names of many such people.
Today, we bring you a story of such a successful businessman who started his career with his father’s bearing business. Even after that business was shut down, he did not give up and continued his hard work. Today, he is the leader of India’s retail business. Not only that, he also left behind many big companies in the retail business such as Reliance and Birla.
We are talking about the success of Avenue Supermarts Limited (D-Mart) owner Radhakishan Damani. Today, Damani is included in the list of the richest people in India. Recently, his company issued IPO (shares), which was sold initially at a price of Rs 299. But, when it was listed on the market, it broke all the records and reached Rs 641 in no time. Everyone is now full of praise for the success of D-mart, but in reality it is the result of 15 long years of hardwork.
Damani started his business career with his father’s bearings business. Unfortunately, the business was forced shut after his father’s death. During this bad phase, his brother Rajendra Damani joined him. The Damani brothers then stepped into the stock broking business. In the beginning, Damani did not even understand how the business functions. He spent long hours to get the understanding of the market by acquiring information from other experienced brokers. Once he became a pro, the Damani brothers never looked back. He used his prudence and foresight and became a millionaire by investing in razor-making companies such as Gillette.
Damani wanted to start his own business from the beginning but he could not do it because of lack of initial capital. After making good money from the stock market, he had enough capital and decided to enter the retail market in 2000. After interacting with small businessmen and shopkeepers, he focused on small towns and moved to the retail market under the banner of D-Mart.
Today, there are about 118 stores of D-Mart in 45 cities across the country. One of the key facts behind D-Mart’s success is that it never rented any place for its store. D-Mart stores were always opened after buying that place. This enabled D-Mart to make a higher profit as a large part of the profit usually goes into rent. Not only this, with the help of the extra profit they were able to give the goods at lower price. You will be surprised to know that today the profit of D-Mart is much higher than any other retail groups in the country including Reliance and Future Group.
After the company issued an IPO, not only Damani and his family became rich, but all the officers and employees of D-Mart also became millionaires overnight. Among them is the Managing Director of D-Mart Neville Narona whose shares have been valued at Rs 900 crore. Narona had taken the risk of going out of Hindustan Unilever Company and join Damani a decade ago. Damani’s financial adviser became the owner of Rs 200 crore, while there are thousands of people who also became rich. The valuation of the company is over 40,000 crores.
Generally, the aristocrat who is away from headlines, always believes in living a simple life. Damani has always believed that it is better to progress in a business by focusing on proven areas rather than spreading the business in a big way across the country too soon. Radhakishan Damani is a winning example of this formula who successfully left behind the legendary industrialists of the country like Anil Ambani, Ajay Piramal, Rahul Bajaj.