Rakesh Jhunjhunwala Wiki, Age, Caste, Wife, Children, Family, Biography & More

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is one of the greatest stock market investors in India. He is considered as the Indian Warren Buffet or the King of Dalal Street with a Midas touch.

Wiki/Biography

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was born on Tuesday, 5 July 1960 (age 60 years; as of 2020) in Hyderabad, Telangana. He was two years old when his family shifted to Mumbai. Rakesh holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics, Mumbai and became a Chartered Accountant in 1985. ^[1]Forbes

Physical Appearance

Hair Colour: Salt and Pepper

Eye Colour: Black

Family & Caste

Rakesh was born into a middle-class Marwari family. ^[2]YouTube

Parents & Siblings

Rakesh’s father, Radheshyamji Jhunjhunwala was an Income Tax Officer. His mother, Urmila Jhunjhunwala was a housewife. Rakesh’s elder brother, Rajesh is a Chartered Accountant. He has two sisters, Sudha Gupta and Neena Sanganeria.

Relationships, Wife & Children

Rakesh married Rekha Jhunjhunwala on Sunday, 22 February 1987. The couple went through a complicated pregnancy. His wife gave birth to their daughter Nishtha on 30 June 2004 after six cycles of IVF. His twin sons, Aryaman and Aryaveer were born on 2 March 2009.

Address

Il Palazzo, Little Gibbs Rd, Malabar Hill, Mumbai.

Career

As an Investor

Rakesh was a bright student and started dabbling in stocks from a very young age. In an interview, when he was asked about who introduced him to the stock market, he said,

My father was also interested in stocks. When I was a young child, he and his friends would drink in the evening and discuss the stock market. I would listen to them and one day I asked him why do these prices fluctuate. He told me to check if there is a news item on Gwalior Rayon in the newspaper, and if there was Gwalior Rayon’s price would fluctuate the next day.”

A rare childhood picture of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala

Soon after, Rakesh made up his mind of becoming a stockbroker. He was advised by his father to first complete his formal education so that he had a backup plan in case he fails as a stockbroker. Rakesh completed his Chartered Accountancy in 1985 and began working as a stock trader. Rakesh was strictly asked by his father to not ask any of his friends for investment.

Mr. Jhunjhunwala entered the stock market with just Rs. 5000 when SENSEX was hovering at around 150 points. As of 2020, SENSEX has crossed 45000 points.

He met his first client, Mr. Mendonca through his brother, who was then working as a Chartered Accountant. Rakesh convinced him to invest Rs. 1.5 lakh and promised him a return of 18%. His second client gave him a capital of Rs. 10 lakh. Rakesh’s first investment was buying 5000 shares of Tata Tea at Rs. 43, and the stock soon rose to Rs. 143 landing him a generous profit. His initial investments also included buying shares of Sesa Goa, Bata, Apollo Hospitals, and Bharat Electronics. The market honcho made a profit of Rs 25 lakh in his initial years of trading.

Mr. Jhunjhunwala’s multibagger shares include 8 crore shares of Titan Ltd. that he bought for Rs. 5 per share in 2002, and the share price rose to Rs. 1500 by the year 2020. His other major investment was buying shares of Lupin Ltd. The share price of Lupin skyrocketed from Rs. 150 to Rs. 975. Such investments made him the King of Dalal Street. Rakesh went through a rough phase after the 2008 worldwide recession. His stocks fell by 30%, but they recovered by the year 2012.

Rakesh manages his private equity firm ‘Rare Enterprises,’ which is co-owned by him and his wife. The firm is named after the couple, ‘Ra’ for Rakesh and ‘Re’ for Rekha.

Mr. Jhunjhunwala deems Radhakishan Damani, the owner of DMart as his mentor. During the Harshad Mehta phase (1990-92), Rakesh and Damani were pushing forward the bearish trend in the stock market, and they made a lot of money by shorting the stocks. In an interview, when he was asked about the former Big Bull Harshad Mehta, he said,

No, I made lot of money by short selling. Harshad Mehta was a dream. I made one of the biggest fortune of my life by short selling in ‘92. In fact, I will tell you about an incident. We started short selling from 4200. So BSE CEO Mr Mayya would call me and say you are short selling, I will take your badge. Again he called me at 3,500, at 3,000 and then he called me when the index was 2,200. I told him Mr Mayya, wouldn’t you have been happy if you had joined me, instead of firing me at every stage?”

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala with his mentor Radhakishan Damani

As a Film Producer

Mr. Jhunjhunwala is the chairman of Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. He has co-produced movies like ‘English Vinglish’ (2012) and Shamitabh (2015) with his mentor and friend Radhakishan Damani.

Controversy

In 2020, Rakesh was under heavy scrutiny from SEBI. He was conjectured of insider trading in the shares of his IT education and training firm, Aptech during the time frame between February 2016 and September 2016, as reported by an informant. He was sent a show-cause notice by SEBI stating that the board was going to freeze his bank accounts. The board also investigated his wife, mother in law and some other board members, such as Ramesh S Damani and Madhu Jayakumar. ^[3]The Economic Times

Favourite Things

• Food: Chinese Food, Dosa

• Actor: Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan

• Actress: Waheeda Rehman

• Director: Guru Dutt

Car Collection

Rakesh owns a Mercedes Benz S-Class.

Net Worth

Mr. Jhunjhunwala’s net worth is valued at around $3.1 billion as of 2020. ^[4]Forbes His physical assets are listed as follows.

•  A 4,500 sq ft duplex in South Mumbai’s Malabar Hills that Mr Rakesh bought for Rs 25.25 crore.

•  An 18,000 sq ft holiday home with seven bedrooms, a pool, jacuzzi, gym, and a disco in Lonavala. ^[5]Open Magazine

Facts/Trivia

• In 2017, he reportedly earned more than 875 crores in a single day because of the hike in the share price of Titan.

• The business mogul is listed as the 54th richest Indian (Mukesh Ambani being the richest) as of 2020.

• Actor Kavin Dave played a role based on Rakesh Jhunjhunwala in SonyLIV’s hit web series, Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story.

• The Market Wizard guides the young traders to learn from the mistakes they make. He believes that the stock market is the one true king. In an interview, describing the market, he said,
  

  Markets are like women – always commanding, mysterious, unpredictable and volatile.”

• There is a blog titled ‘Secret Journal of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’ that satirically describes his life. It was written by author Aditya Magal who also published a parody novel titled ‘How to become a billionaire by selling Nothing’ in 2014.

• Mr. Jhunjhunwala is a supporter of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In a media interaction with The Economic Times, he said,
  

  I would like Modi to be PM again. I am BJP supporter and I will remain one. If some other government comes, it is not going to be the end of  India because India is a responsible democracy. But I desire, wish, hope that we have a BJP government.”

• Rakesh Jhunjhunwala contributes significantly to philanthropic causes. He is the main backer of the Agastya International Foundation based in Bengaluru. In an interview with The Economic Times, he said,
  

  Ultimate giver is God and it casts a duty on us that this wealth be used for good social purposes. So it is the aim and ambition of my life that a good portion of the wealth that I earn would be used for good social purposes. The only sure income that I have is dividend income and I spend one-third of my dividend income in charity and I hope to do that in future and also with time I would like to endow at least Rs. 500 crores.”

• Rakesh loves to gamble, especially on horses. He owns many horses and loves to see them race. He said,
  

  I regularly visit the Mahalaxmi Race Course [in Mumbai] during the racing season. I just enjoy seeing those races.”

• Mr. Jhunjhunwala is a chain smoker and also drinks alcohol. ^[6]The Economic Times

• His favourite pastimes include reading and watching food shows.