Radhakishan Damani becomes India's 2nd richest person
Radhakrishan Damani, the founder of retailer Avenue Supermarts, which runs the retail chain DMart, has become India's second-richest person with a net worth of $17.8 billion. He stands just behind Reliance Industries's Mukesh Ambani ($57.4 billion)who is just not the richest in India but in Asia.
According to Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires Index, the total net worth of Damani is at $17.8 billion, as on Saturday. The Forbes' Index showed that Damani has moved ahead of HCL's Shiv Nadar ($16.5 billion), Uday Kotak ($14.9 billion), Gautam Adani ($14.1 billion) and Lakshmi Mittal ($12.1 billion).
Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires Index showed that after a rally of more than 5 per cent in the Avenue Supermarts shares last week. The shares peaked to Rs 2,559 per share on Thursday and closed down
Mumbai-based Avenue Supermarts owns and operates the DMart supermarket chain. The company opened its first store in Mumbai in 2002. As of December 31, 2019, the company had 196 stores with retail business Area of 6.97 million square feet. It is the most profitable grocery retailer in India.
It got listed on the bourses on March 21, 2017, at a market capitalisation of Rs 39,988 crore and since then its shares have zoomed over 280 per cent. Its market capitalisation on Monday crossed Rs1.5-trillion (Rs 1.50 lakh crore) mark after an 8.63 per cent surge in its stock prices. With this, the Radhakishan Damani-promoted company turned 18th most valuable company on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in terms of market capitalisation. In the process, it has piped Nestle India and Bajaj Finserv which are at 19th and 20th position respectively. Last week, DMart had entered the list of top 20 most valued companies by market capitalisation on BSE, replacing Wipro.
Damani got into retailing in 2002 with one store in suburban Mumbai.
D-Mart delivered strong growth with a net profit in December quarter, although revenue growth reflected the broader consumption slowdown. In the quarter, Avenue Supermarts reported a 53.3 per cent year-on-year (YoY) rise in standalone profit at Rs 394 crore, compared with Rs 257 crore in the same quarter of the corresponding year.