RAMESH DAMANI

Ramesh Damani was born in 1957 into a Mumbai family already connected to the stock exchange. He went to the United States, earned an MBA from California State University, Northridge, and worked as a computer professional in California through the 1980s.

That detour turned out to be his edge. He came back to India and became a member of the Bombay Stock Exchange in 1989.

When Infosys did its IPO in 1993, most Indian investors did not get it. Damani did, because he had lived inside American tech and could see the outsourcing wave coming.

He put roughly 10 lakh rupees each into Infosys and the tech firm CMC. Then he waited.

Infosys went on to grow around 500 times, CMC around 40 times. A decade later he read the next trend and made a fortune in the liquor business through United Spirits.

Along the way he became a household name hosting shows on CNBC-TV18.

His investment vehicle is Ramesh Damani Finance, the firm he runs off his BSE membership. He is not a fund manager taking outside money so much as a professional investor running his own book.

His legend is built on a few concentrated bets. Infosys and CMC in the 1990s.

United Spirits in the early 2000s. He also took a large, long-term position in Aptech, the education and training company, and has been closely tied to it.

His disclosed portfolio over the years has featured names like Protean eGov Technologies and Panama Petrochem. The pattern is a handful of high-conviction holdings, not a sprawling list.

Damani is a bottom-up value investor who bets big on a few things he understands deeply. His real skill is spotting a giant trend before the crowd does.

He saw software outsourcing in the early 1990s because he had worked in US tech. He saw the liquor boom in the early 2000s.

Once he finds a great company, his rule is to hold it and let it run. He talks about riding your winners and refusing to sell a wonderful stock for a small quick profit.

But he is disciplined on price. He insists you cannot pay any price for a stock no matter how great the company is.

Find a big trend, buy quality inside it, do not overpay, then be patient.

Infosys. In 1993 the company went public, and most Indian investors shrugged.

Damani did not, because he had worked in American tech and understood that Indian software firms were about to ride a global outsourcing wave. He put roughly 10 lakh rupees into the IPO.

Over the following years the stock grew around 500 times. It is one of the most famous single calls in Indian market history.

And the reason he got it was not luck. It was that his years coding in California let him see a trend nobody around him could.

His hardest lessons came early, when he sold good stocks for small, quick profits and then watched them keep climbing. That is the exact mistake behind his favorite advice today.

Learn to ride your winners. Think about it in his own terms.

A company like Infosys went on to rise around 500 times. Cashing out of a stock like that for a modest gain is not a small error.

It is walking away from a fortune. He turned that pain into a rule, which is why he now preaches holding great businesses instead of booking tiny profits and feeling clever.

His philosophy comes out in one-liners because he has spent years on television explaining it. Money is made looking through the windshield, not the rearview mirror, so focus on where a business is going, not where it has been.

The long-term trend of markets is up, and stocks reward the people who stay put. Never overpay, because even a great company is a bad investment at a silly price.

And once you own a winner, ride it. Do not cash out for a 10 or 20 rupee gain and miss the real move.

It all points the same way. Think long, think quality, and sit still.

Ramesh Damani is married and based in Mumbai, where he has spent his whole investing career. For someone this successful he keeps a low-key personal life and lets the ideas do the talking.

His public identity is the calm, articulate market voice on television, the guy who can put a decade of history into plain English. If he has a signature outside of stocks, it is his reputation as a genuine bookworm and student of markets.

Damani earned an MBA from California State University, Northridge, in the United States. The bigger education, though, was the job that came after.

He worked as a computer professional in California in the 1980s, and that hands-on time inside American tech is what let him understand the Infosys opportunity years before most Indian investors did. Sometimes the most valuable degree is the one you earn on the job.

As an Amazon Associate, Netfigo earns from qualifying purchases. Book links above may be affiliate links.