Rakesh Jhunjhunwala: A perspective

In fact, Rakesh's achievement was greater than that of Mr Simons, a mathematical genius who has a team of super-bright mathematicians and physicists to develop quantitative techniques

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is known to have started his investing journey in 1985 with Rs 5,000. He was worth Rs 50,000 crore when he passed away two weeks ago. That is a compound annual return of 65 per cent over 37 years. No one seems to have calculated this number or explained its implications. So here it is. This makes Rakesh the world’s second-most successful investor ever, based on the data available for investing marathoners. Nosing just ahead of him is Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, who racked up 66 per cent returns between 1988 and 2018 (based on the last