Chennai’s 'accidental investor' who became D-Street's top multi-bagger hunter: Rajeev Khanna

"I knew absolutely nothing about investments. So I put my money just from the sharp observations of my surroundings,” Rajiv Khanna told students of IIT, Madras.

Rajiv Khanna, the mastermind behind the multi-bagger portfolio of Dolly Khanna(his wife) is one of the most successful stock investors on Dalal Street, having generated a huge amount of wealth from the stock market along with his wife.

Today, Jobaaj stories takes you on an interesting journey of an investor from Chennai who knows how to pinpoint good stocks at the right time and generate stellar returns.

He didn't understand the stock market, says Khanna

Born and raised in a middle-class family, Rajiv Khanna graduated from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Madras as a chemical engineer.

In 1995, he sold his ice cream business to Hindustan Unilever, the company he founded in 1986, known as Kwality Milk Foods. Having no idea what to do with the funds, he randomly invested in Satyam Computers because his neighbor's son worked there.

Khanna believes that technology stocks will perform well and deliver multiple gains. So he invested massively without realizing that they had become highly overvalued and that they were on the verge of collapse.

Khanna, who made more than 300 percent gains in 2000, was lucky to escape the tech stock crash unscathed.

A turning point in the investment journey:

Khanna's life turned around in 2003-2004 when he found the Indian real estate company Unitech while looking for an apartment in Delhi.

Khanna was intrigued by the company's luxurious office and decided to explore it further. In his research, he found that Unitech was valued at Rs 100 crore and was held by Citibank and other big FIIs.

To test the business, he invested 5-7 crore rupees in stocks and then decided to forget about it.

“In 2008, when the real estate boom came, his small investment of Rs 5-7 crore in Units turned into Rs 25 crore,”

He often stocked up on products his wife used on a daily basis, such as Fem bleach, Hawkins cookware, and Nutralite butter, which he thought would appeal to other women. It was fortunate that Khanna's portfolio also worked with this investment theme.

Dolly Khanna Portfolio Holdings:(Till September 2022)

Her portfolio is managed by her husband Rajiv Khanna. Dolly Khanna's Portfolio typically leans towards more traditional stocks in manufacturing, textile, chemicals, and sugar stocks.

As per the latest corporate shareholdings filed, Dolly Khanna publicly holds 23 stocks with a net worth 0f over Rs. 435.5 Cr.

To be a successful investor, you need both merit and luck :

At a CAGR of over 50%, if I started with Rs 6, it is now worth Rs 2,000. Can I do that? I do not think so. It was a bit of luck, a bit of everything," he said in an interview

He downplays his achievements and says I didn't deserve such adulation. “People put me on a pedestal and write about my portfolio all the time. I was too stupid not to know when to sell stocks and became a multi-bagger,” he said

Favorite investors and metric of success

He admires Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, and Stanley Druckenmiller. Khanna encouraged his audience to live their dream and give life their best. He said that the metric of success is not money, but how hard one works to fulfill one's potential.

His favorite quote was George Bernard Shaw – “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Thanks for reading!

Feeling inspired? Continue to read the investing journey of Vijay Kedia.