The House That They Built

In the 30 Years Since Motilal Oswal  Financial Services Was Born, It Has Grown Far Beyond Its Broking Origins. Now, Co-founders Motilal Oswal and Raamdeo Agrawal Are Focusing on a Vertical Climb

- Pravin Palande

Three decades make for a long partnership by any measure. For Raamdeo Agrawal, 60, co-founder and joint managing director, and Motilal Oswal, 55, chairman, it has been a particularly interesting one, and not without its share of ups and downs. By their own account, the learnings have been plenty in their journey towards building a successful homegrown financial services firm.

When Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd (MOFSL) was set up as a broking house in 1987, it was one of the few professionally managed broking companies to concentrate on research and it went on to become a non-banking financial company. Apart from its traditional business of broking, the company also entered the asset management (AMC) business in 2008 and later set up a housing finance company (HFC) in 2013. Both these businesses have grown at a brisk pace over the last three years and make up a substantial part of the net profit of the company. Not surprisingly, over the last two years, MOFSL has seen its market capitalisation go up by 245 percent to ₹16,000 crore. For FY17, the company had a consolidated revenue of ₹1,818 crore over a net profit of ₹360 crore; its return on equity (ROE), at 22 percent, is a significant climb from 9 percent in FY13.

In an interview with Forbes India, Oswal and Agrawal speak about how they built the company, what worked for them and, importantly, what didn’t. Edited excerpts:

Q How was the start with Motilal Oswal? What were the initial challenges?