Shardul Securities is a proprietary investment firm structured as a Reserve Bank of India-registered Non-Banking Financial Company - essentially, a publicly listed vehicle that deploys its own capital across Indian stocks, mutual funds, bonds and gold rather than taking deposits or lending to the public. Incorporated in Mumbai in 1985 and now in its fifth decade, the company is controlled by the Chaturvedi family’s promoter group, which held roughly three-quarters of the equity as of FY25, and it operates with a lean team - just four to six permanent employees in recent years - running fully automated trading and settlement systems. The recurring approach is straightforward: build a diversified portfolio of capital-market instruments, earn dividends, interest and capital gains, and manage risk through a dedicated investment committee and hedging where appropriate - all while keeping the balance sheet free of non-performing assets and, in most years, free of borrowings.
Business segments
A single investment engine that generates returns through three complementary streams - a quoted-equity and mutual-fund portfolio, a rental-property book, and a wholly owned broking subsidiary - all managed from the same lean platform.
1. Proprietary investment portfolio: the company’s own capital at work
The firm runs a concentrated, multi-asset book of Indian equities, mutual funds, bonds and physical gold, earning through dividends, interest and mark-to-market gains - it is an investor, not a lender.
- Mutual funds and alternative assets for diversification - the unquoted portfolio spans 19 mutual-fund schemes including Tata Business Cycle Fund, ICICI Prudential Value Discovery and Nippon India Nifty SmallCap 250 Index, together worth Rs. 55.9 crore, plus a small position in the Sixth Sense India Opportunities III alternative investment fund, so the company blends direct stock-picking with professional fund management.
- Physical gold as a hedge - the company held 13 kilograms of gold valued at Rs. 11.72 crore as of March 2025, with no silver, providing a non-correlated store of value inside the overall book.
- Derivatives used to cap volatility, not to speculate - the company employs derivative instruments as a hedging mechanism to limit downside where appropriate, and it pledges securities (Rs. 65.12 crore with Kotak Securities and Rs. 46.62 crore with another broker) for margin-trading facilities that give it flexibility without selling core holdings.
- No bad assets and almost no debt - the company has carried zero non-performing assets in recent years, and as of FY23 it had no borrowings at all; even when it did borrow in FY24 (Rs. 9.89 crore secured against a Bandra-Kurla Complex property), the interest cost was a modest 8.0-8.8%, so the portfolio’s returns are not eroded by financing charges.
2. Investment property: a small but steady rental book
The company owns and leases out office premises in Mumbai, collecting rent that provides a recurring income stream independent of stock-market movements.
- Brick-and-mortar assets with a mark-up to book value - as of March 2025 the investment property carried a net book value of Rs. 8.27 crore but had an estimated fair value of Rs. 21.95 crore, meaning the realisable worth is more than two-and-a-half times what sits on the balance sheet.
- Rental income that doubled year-on-year - the property generated Rs. 1.61 crore of rental income in FY25, up from Rs. 0.91 crore in FY24, with direct operating expenses of just Rs. 0.24 crore, so the stream is high-margin and growing.
- Owner-occupied premises add further ballast - beyond the leased-out property, the company holds its own office premises, vehicles, furniture and equipment with a net carrying amount of Rs. 3.43 crore, giving it an operational base it owns rather than rents.
3. Shriyam Broking: a captive broking arm that also earns outside profits
The wholly owned subsidiary Shriyam Broking Intermediary Limited executes trades for the parent while running its own profitable broking business - it is both a cost-saver and a profit centre.
- Built-in execution and lower trading costs - Shardul Securities pays brokerage to its own subsidiary for its trading activities, so the fees stay within the group rather than leaking to third-party brokers.
- A material contributor in its own right - Shriyam Broking posted a net profit after tax of Rs. 11.31 crore in FY25, roughly three times the Rs. 3.53 crore it earned in FY24, making it a meaningful earnings stream beyond the parent’s proprietary book.
- A dormant real-estate subsidiary now brought in-house - Shriyam Realtors Private Limited, originally a step-down subsidiary with negligible activity due to a sluggish property market, was acquired directly by Shardul Securities in March 2025 for Rs. 1.97 crore, simplifying the group structure and keeping the real-estate option alive at minimal cost.
Group structure and partners
A tightly held promoter group with two operating subsidiaries, no joint ventures, and a recent internal restructuring that consolidates control further.
- Promoters own nearly three-quarters of the company - the Chaturvedi-family-led promoter group held 74.84% of equity as of FY25, with key entities including A to Z Broking Services LLP, Shriyam Commodities Intermediary LLP, Pradeep Sandeep Corporate Advisors LLP and Kamvan Construction Pvt Ltd.
- An inter-se transfer is reshaping the promoter block - in July 2026, Shriyam Commodities Intermediary LLP proposed to acquire 20.94% of the equity from five other promoter-group members, which would lift its stake from 5.33% to 26.27%, an internal restructuring that concentrates voting power without changing overall promoter control.
- A failed delisting attempt shows the promoters’ preference for privacy - in FY24 the promoters tried to take the company private through a reverse book-building process, aiming to cut listing compliance costs and gain financial flexibility, but the offer lapsed because too few public shareholders tendered their shares.
- The share capital was recently split for liquidity - in January 2025 each Rs. 10 face-value share was sub-divided into five shares of Rs. 2 each, a move that typically makes the stock more accessible to smaller investors.
- The registrar and transfer agent is Link Intime India Private Limited, handling the 98.35% of equity that is held in dematerialised form.