Rakesh Jhunjhunwala passes away at 62 | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, known as “India’s Warren Buffett” passed away in Mumbai on Sunday morning. He was 62.
He was not keeping well for the past few days and breathed his last today at Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai, as per the hospital sources.
A self-made trader, investor and businessman, Jhunjhunwala was the son of an income tax officer and is survived by his wife and three children.
Condoling the demise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a tweet said “Jhunjhunwala was indomitable”.

Jhunjhunwala’s early life
After graduating from Sydenham College in 1985, he enrolled at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and married Rekha Jhunjunwala, who is also a stock market investor.
Jhunjhunwala developed a childhood fascination for stocks by watching his father, a retired tax commissioner, juggle market investments, he said in an interview with Bloomberg News in 2005.
After graduating with honors from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics in Mumbai, he borrowed $100 from a brother-in-law in 1985 and began buying shares at age 25.

According to Forbes, Jhunjhunwala has an estimated net worth of $4.6 billion.
One of his early successes was Crisil Ltd, which he first bought in 2002 at Rs 150 apiece. S&P Global offered Rs 775 a share in 2005 to gain control of the Indian firm.
He made Rs 40 crore ($5.4 million) shorting stocks during India’s first billion-dollar financial scandal in the early 1990s. Back then, a broker, Harshad Mehta, had funneled money borrowed from banks into equities on the BSE, pushing up stock prices. When the $2 billion fraud was discovered, it caused a market crash.
Jhunjhunwala also ran a privately-owned stock trading firm called RARE Enterprises.
The Big Bullof Dalal Street
An investor with Midas touch, Jhunjhunwala was the 48th richest man in the country.
His portfolio includes companies like Star Health, Titan, Rallis India, Escorts, Canara Bank, Indian Hotels Company, Agro Tech Foods, Nazara Technologies, Tata Motors.
Overall, he had a stake in 47 companies at the end of the June quarter. Titan, Star Health, Tata Motors and Metro Brands were some of his largest holdings.
He was the chairman of Hungama Media and Aptech and was on the board of directors of firms such as Viceroy Hotels, Concord Biotech, Provogue India and Geojit Financial Services.
Born on July 5, 1960 in a Rajasthani family, Jhunjhunwala grew up in Bombay, where his father worked as a commissioner of Income Tax. He graduated from Sydenham College and thereafter enrolled at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
He earned his first big profit in 1986 when he bought 5,000 shares of Tata Tea at Rs 43 and the stock rose to Rs 143 within three months. In three years, he earned Rs 20-25 lakh.
When Jhunjhunwala entered the stock market, the Sensex was at 150 points.
Akasa air owner
Starting off his journey in stock markets while still in college with a capital of just Rs 5,000, he recently teamed up with ex-Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube and former IndiGo head Aditya Ghosh to launch Akasa Air — India’s newest budget carrier.
A lot of people questioned why he planned to start an airline when aviation was not doing well, to which he replied, “I say I’m prepared for failure.”
Akasa Air made its debut on August 7 with its first flight operating from Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport to Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport.
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