MONEY

Big Bull Rakesh Jhunjhunwala passes away a week after his Akasa Air takes off

Veteran stock market investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala died on Sunday morning in Mumbai after he suffered a cardiac arrest. He was 62 and was suffering from kidney ailments. According to sources, he was undergoing dialysis on a regular basis as both his kidneys had failed. He was brought to the Breach Candy Hospital at 6:45 am and was declared dead. 

Both a trader and chartered accountant and one of the richest men in the country, he was known as the Big Bull of Dalal Street. He was a co-founder of Akasa Air, India’s newest airline which began commercial operations last week. 

Mr Jhunjhunwala was chairman of Hungama Media and Aptech as well as a director of Viceroy Hotels, Concord Biotech, Provogue India and Geojit Financial Services. 

When Mr Jhunjhunwala was in college, he began dabbling in the stock market. He enrolled at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, but after graduating, he decided to dive head first into Dalal Street. Mr Jhunjhunwala invested Rs 5,000 in capital in 1985. That capital had grown to Rs 11,000 crore by September 2018. 

After hearing his father discuss the stock market with his friends, Mr Jhunjhunwala became interested in it. Mr Jhunjhunwala quoted his father as saying that he should read newspapers on a regular basis because the news was what caused the stock market to fluctuate. While his father permitted him to dabble in the stock market, he refused to provide financial assistance and forbade him from asking friends for money, according to reports. 

But Mr Jhunjhunwala was a risk-taker from the beginning. He borrowed money from his brother’s clients with the promise of returning it with higher returns than those of fixed deposits of banks. 

In 1986, he made his first significant profit when he purchased 5,000 shares of Tata Tea at Rs 43, and the stock rose to Rs 143 within three months. He made more than three times his money. He earned around Rs 25 lakh in three years. 

Mr Jhunjhunwala had successfully invested in Titan, CRISIL, Sesa Goa, Praj Industries, Aurobindo Pharma and NCC over the years. 

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