THE PHANTOM OF D-STREET

RADHAKISHAN DAMANI, WHO BUILT DMART BRICK BY BRICK, IS AN ENIGMA—SPOKEN OF BY ALL, DEFINED BY HIS SILENCE.

- BY V. KESHAVDEV

HOW DO YOU profile a billionaire who built an empire in full view of the market yet never once stepped into its spotlight? A man who's never delivered a TED Talk, never graced a business television debate, and never publicly articulated his investing philosophy. Radhakishan Shivkishan Damani remains a figure as understated as he is powerful, such that even his peers speak of him with a kind of reverent curiosity.

On the very rare occasions I've had the chance to meet Damani, he was always unfailingly polite—courteous to a fault, offering a quiet promise of a conversation that never quite materialised. The polite messages, the occasional followup call for this Fortune India profile—were, as always, met with silence. With most people, such reticence might invite frustration; with Damani, it only deepens the enigma.

Damani built his wealth—₹2,27,543 crore ($26.53 billion) as of June 30, 2025, according to the 2025 Fortune India-Waterfield Advisors study, and rank No. 7 on India's Top 100 Billionaires list this year—with characteristic invisibility in a market that thrives on noise. So much so that on March 21, 2017, the day Avenue Supermarts, the company he founded, listed on the exchanges, it wasn't Damani but another reticent legend, Nemish Shah, co-founder of Enam and the man behind the Pune-based Foundation for Liberal Arts and Management Education (FLAME), who took to the stage. “It’s a memorable day for me and refreshes my memories of my association with Radhakishanji... I always ask him: ‘what made you look out at the peak of your cycle in 2000 to look out for a very, very tough business’... I haven't got the answer yet,” said Shah. Damani, who was present on the dais, unsurprisingly, said nothing. Instead, he let the numbers speak—and their echo reverberates to this day.