The Modest Billionaire

Among the most successful stories of the post-liberalisation era include Nirmal Jain’s feat of creating one of India’s largest financial conglomerates from scratch. An IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus and chartered accountant, in a stimulating interaction, Jain lets MARWAR in on his journey from the campus to heading the ₹25,000 crore IIFL Holdings Ltd as its founder chairman, in a little over two-and- a-half decades.

- Joseph Rozario

Except for his expansive office, everything about Nirmal Jain belies the billionaire in him. Simple, informal and modest, he brushes off recent newspaper reports about his net worth touching the $1 billion mark, after the private wealth unit of IIFL Holdings, the financial services company of which he is the founder and chairman, registered unusual growth, taking the unit’s total ‘assets under management’ to $20 billion.

For all his simplicity and humility, have no illusions about the man, however, when it comes to enterprise. Motivated and driven, his boundless energy shows in his restlessness, which combined with his sound academic background and attributes of honesty and hard work have helped him build what today is India’s leading financial services conglomerate—from scratch!

Humble beginnings

The son of a trader who moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) at the age of eight from the Jains’ ancestral home in Haldighati near Udaipur, Nirmal Jain’s father’s bequests to him were more in the nature of values than a business legacy. “Honesty, integrity and hard work are some of my greatest takings from my father, and they have been a great contributor in my approach towards life and business. One of the greatest lessons I have learnt from him is that one needs to be conservative, even as one should look for the best opportunities to grow," says Jain.