While the name Dolly Khanna is well-known on Dalal Street, few in the market know about Rajiv Khanna, the real hero. A chemical engineer from IIT Madras, Rajiv Khanna worked for ICI Ltd, a pharmaceutical company as a research person in the field of industrial explosives and blasting physics. In 1986, he started his company – Kwality Milk Foods.

In 1995, after selling Kwality Milk Foods to Hindustan Unilever, Rajiv Khanna, started investing in the market in 1996-97 for the first time. Now his portfolio is worth of Rs 170 crore, but he maintains that his core business remains that of milk products with stock trading being just a ‘hobby’.

Initial Investment : 1 Crore in 1996-97

Current Portfolio : Around 250 Crores

Dolly Khanna Latest Portfolio 2021

Hawkins Cookers was his first multi-bagger. Khanna started accumulating the stock in 2007 and went on accumulating it 2009 at an average price of 130-140. Recently he existed the stock @ Rs 3,500, and the company has given him at least 70% of its profits as dividends.

Then, there was the real beginning of Rajiv Khanna. He went on to identify micro-cap winners such as Wimplast (more than 7 times in two years), Cera Sanitaryware (more than 7 times in two years ), RS Software (4 times in less than two years), and Avanti Feeds (more than 4 times in less than 6 months).

Rajiv Khanna with Mohnish Pabrai and Porinju Veliyath

Khanna’s passion for picking stocks through extensive research can be traced back to his first job. In the first decade of his investing career, gains from the market were modest. It was only after 2007 that the stakes started becoming bigger.

Khanna has held most of the stocks in his portfolio for a long time now but he has also played the momentum game. For instance, he had purchased 1% stake in Amara Raja Batteries worth Rs 13 crore in the June quarter of 2012 and sold the entire stake in less than six months for Rs 39 crore, making three times the profit. “I am just somebody who got lucky. People just see the profits we make, nobody knows the kind of hits we have taken.”

Investing Strategy of Dolly Khanna

According to his own words –
It all depends on the underlying market condition. Like in tennis you play different games on different courts — hard court, clay court and lawn, we also study the market situation and pick our stocks accordingly. It can be either a value stock, growth stock, momentum stock or buying based on technical study.

Rajiv Khanna

He feels market is the most complex puzzle, It’s not the money, it’s the challenge what is exciting. Money is just the outcome. And once you start to understand the game, making money is not difficult.

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