D-Mart owner Radhakishan Damani enters top 100 global billionaires’ club

TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi/ Radhakishan S Damani, investor and promoter of the D-Mart supermarket chain, has broken into the elite club of the top 100 global billionaires. Damani, who grew up in a single-room apartment in Mumbai, is now ranked 98th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with $19.2 billion as his net worth.

The index is a daily ranking of the world’s richest people. The other Indians on the top 100 rich list ahead of Damani are Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, and Lakshmi Mittal. The rise in the wealth of Damani is synonymous with the growth of his retail chain.

“Damani is known to be a deep value investor who largely focuses on the mid- and small-cap space, with long holding periods of 10,15, and 20 years. “However, most of his wealth could be attributed to his holdings in Avenue Supermarts (the company that runs DMart),” said a market veteran.

Besides Supermarts, his top holdings include VST Industries, India Cements, Sundaram Finance, and Trent. Bloomberg has attributed 60 per cent of the 75 per cent promoters’ stake to Radhakishan Damani and family (the rest is held by others including brother Gopikishan S Damani and his family).