Source : From the diary of Rajnil Dave
An interesting story from a membership fee of Rs 1 to a market cap of Rs 148 lakh crore
The history of Mumbai would be incomplete without mention of Premchand Raichand, a Gujarati malletujar, who was a leading businessman of the nineteenth century. Premchand, originally from a Jain family from Surat, was the only businessman in Mumbai at that time who could speak fluent English with the British, French with the French traders and Spanish with the Portuguese.
It is said that in those days when cotton was planted all over Gujarat and when all the ripe goods reached Mumbai, Premchand Raichand was the only buyer! Premchand Raichand was called Cotton King as he bought half of the total cotton production in the country.
The city of Manchester in England was considered the main center of cotton mills. As many as 180 cotton mills were thriving in Manchester in the nineteenth century, and most of them were supplied by Premchand Raichand.
Premchand Raichand as an international player of Roo started Roo Satta in Mumbai. In which Dwarkadas Gokaldas, Mathurdas Harjivan, two Shethiyas of Kapol Vanik caste were also partners of Premchand. These partners started speculating in commodity products besides Rs. Initially, Premchand used to gamble in the compound of his bungalow in Bychalla. But the number started increasing gradually so he changed the venue.
Horniman Circle near Churchgate had a Town Hall in those days. Today, the place has become a big park. There, under a banyan tree, speculation began systematically under the guidance of five prominent Parsi mill-owners named Premchand, Dwarkadas, Mathurdas, Ghanshyamdas Khatau and Dinsha Pittit. It framed rules with a view to bringing discipline along the British lines. 1 as membership fee for participating in the auction. was decided and the organization was named the Native Share and Stock Brokers Association. The same organization is today’s Bombay Stock Exchange.
Initially a total of 25 traders joined the exchange, out of which 18 were Gujarati, 4 Marwari and 2 South Indian and 1 Punjabi. The number increased to 318 in the first month itself. Common people called them as Chataiyas as mats were spread out in the open under banyan trees.
The organization that grew under the banyan tree has become the banyan tree of the economy today
There is grandeur in every talk of the Bombay Stock Exchange. The amount of deals done here, the presence of the country’s top companies, millions of families involved in the economic upheaval, Bombay Stock Exchange enjoys the status as a model financial institution not only of India or Asia, but of the entire world.
Bombay Stock Exchange is the 11th largest stock exchange in the world with a market cap of Rs 148 lakh crore. It ranks 5th in the world in terms of the number of daily transactions.
More than 5000 companies are registered in Bombay Stock Exchange. It is number 1 in the world in terms of this number.
The World Federation of Exchanges has been formed to regulate stock exchanges around the world, with headquarters in Paris. Bombay Stock Exchange also occupies a prominent position among the major stock exchanges which are employed for the management of this institution.