Dalal Street had been fraught with risk. People who made big fortunes often made headlines as scamsters, leading to equity markets being looked at with suspicion in post-liberalised India.
Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, a partner at RARE Enterprises, who rose to amass a USD 5.8 billion fortune and earn the tag of India’s biggest individual investor, was broadly an exception to this, who leaves behind a relatively cleaner slate.
Unlike names like Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh, whose rise in fortunes was tainted with scam links, the newest ‘Big Bull’ in the more-regulated market had lesser baggage on this front.
Frequently likened to legendary investor Warren Buffett, Jhunjhunwala was unabashed about wealth creation and strutted his connections flamboyantly, a sign of the shift to a market-based economy in early 1990s taking root.
While he did not make big headlines for scams, Jhunjhunwala did feature in some cases of insider trading and was also speculated to front-run on stock trades ahead of big news events. In 2021, he and others settled an insider trading case related to Aptech by agreeing to pay Rs 37 crore under the consent route, where an individual can close a pending matter without admitting or denying the charges.
A Rs 70-crore gain on an investment in Zee Enterprises in a short time, by investing in the stock days ahead of…
