When discussing the stock market and market figures, Harshad Mehta and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala come to mind. These two people were generally referred to as the Big Bull, but they are no longer with us. But even before them, there was a powerful person who might legitimately be referred to as the “first Big Bull” of the Indian stock market. Around 150 years ago, this guy was in charge of starting the stock market in Bombay (now Mumbai).
One of the first corporate tycoons in India’s financial center, Premchand Roychand Jain was also known as the Big Bull, the Bullion King, and the Cotton King. He was considered one of the three David Sassoons, Jamshedji Jejeebhoys, and Jamsetji Tatas among Bombay’s renowned merchants.
Roychand, who was born in Surat in 1832 and came from a family of wood merchants, is most known for founding the Native Share and Stock Brokers Association, which later became the Bombay Stock Exchange. Therefore, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which was established on July 9, 1875, 148 years ago, was really created by Premchand Roychand Jain. The BSE was Asia’s first stock exchange. The market value of firms listed on the BSE as of July 2023 exceeds Rs 300 lakh crore.
Around 22 stock brokers started trading when the Native Share and Stock Brokers Association (later BSE) was established, at Roychand’s office in South Bombay, under a banyan tree. According to sources, he was renowned for his original strategy of memorizing every stock trade rather than maintaining any records or books. It is reported that he never used a pen and paper, preferring to remember all of his dealings.
He had enormous success in the stock market within a short period of time. Roychand had accumulated property worth around Rs 1 lakh by 1858. Following the American Civil War in 1861, India saw a boom in the cotton trade, which substantially benefitted Roychand and his partners.
Roychand and his family moved to Bombay so he could continue his education at Elphinstone College. Roychand began working as a successful stockbroker in 1852. In Byculla, Mumbai, he lived in a home that was eventually turned into an orphanage and school. Roychand died away in 1906, and Premchand Roychand & Sons (PRS), a modest firm with a long history, is now run by the fourth generation of his family.
