Ladderup Finance is at its core a patient investor - it buys stakes in businesses, holds them for years, and sells when the time is right, booking the gain. The company began as a non-bank lender and has since evolved into a holding company that deploys its own capital across public and private markets while also running a wealth advisory for outsiders and sharing in a manufacturing joint venture. The recurring thread is a cautious, long-term mindset: whether it is a stock on the exchange or a factory making adhesive tape, the approach is to back assets that compound quietly rather than trade them constantly.
Business segments
Three engines at different stages - a proprietary investment book that is the group's anchor, a wealth advisory that earns fees from other people's money, and a manufacturing joint venture that makes the tape on your Amazon package - each run with the same buy-and-hold patience.
1. Proprietary investing: the group's own capital at work
The company runs a diversified, long-only portfolio of listed and unlisted securities - it is not a trader but a part-owner, earning through dividends and the eventual sale of stakes.
- Invest, hold, exit - the model is to buy equity shares, preference shares and mutual fund units, collect dividends along the way, and recognise the profit only in the year the holding is sold, which means reported earnings are lumpy but reflect genuine realised gains.
- Spread across the economy - the portfolio reaches into financial services, healthcare, retail, quick-service restaurants, packaging, IT, infrastructure, energy, oil and gas, and real estate, so a downturn in any one sector does not sink the whole book.
- A clear line between trading and owning - since October 2025, securities meant to be held for more than a year are classified as long-term investments, while anything shorter sits in current assets as stock-in-trade, making the intent behind each position visible on the balance sheet.
- Mark-to-market rules changed recently - investments made before April 2024 are valued through other comprehensive income, while newer ones flow through the profit-and-loss statement, a shift designed to give a truer picture of performance period by period.
2. Wealth management and advisory: guiding other people's money
Through its wholly owned subsidiary Ladderup Asset Managers, the group earns fees by telling affluent clients where to put their money - and the advice starts with not losing it.
- Safety first, returns second - the advisory philosophy is built on capital preservation, comprehensive financial planning and a deep risk assessment before any investment recommendation is made.
- A predictive model for fund selection - the firm uses a proprietary model to pick mutual funds, positioning itself as a niche advisor that helps clients choose the right product rather than pushing whatever pays the highest commission.
- Growing faster than the industry - assets under management have consistently risen above industry averages, and the subsidiary has outperformed peers on both investment returns and client satisfaction scores.
- Buying a boutique to reach the wealthy - in April 2026 the subsidiary agreed to acquire Jericho Ventures, a Mumbai firm that creates bespoke financial solutions for high-net-worth individuals, for Rs 14 crore, with the deal expected to close by October 2027.
- A GIFT City licence for the future - a step-down subsidiary was incorporated in Ahmedabad's financial hub in May 2025 to conduct fund management, though it had not yet started operations.
3. Waterproof Corporation (WACO): the tape factory
A 50:50 joint venture that makes gummed paper tape - the brown strip that seals corrugated boxes - and is the largest manufacturer of its kind in India, exporting to over 50 countries.
- Pioneer with a 75-year history - WACO helped write the national standards for adhesive tapes in India and built its own manufacturing technology in-house at a 35,000-square-foot plant in central Mumbai, complete with a lab and engineering workshop.
- Two flagship brands - WACO and TACO are the names customers know, built on trust and fair dealing, and they serve industries that cannot afford a failed seal: packaging, plywood and gypsum board.
- Absorbed a bottle-preform business - in 2024, Annapurna Pet, a maker of PET preforms (the test-tube-shaped blanks blown into plastic bottles), was merged into WACO, adding a Gujarat plant with fully automatic Husky and Engel injection-moulding machines that could churn out roughly one billion preforms a year for blue-chip beverage and edible-oil clients.
- Slimmed down to the core - the venture sold its adhesives subsidiary Shree Vinayak Organic in October 2025 for Rs 5.5 crore, exiting the specialty chemicals space to focus on tape and preforms.
Group structure and partners
A listed parent with one wholly owned advisory subsidiary, one joint venture factory, and a clean-up of past experiments that did not work.
- Ladderup Finance Limited is the listed, RBI-registered parent, with the promoter group holding just under 69% as of March 2025.
- The wholly owned subsidiary Ladderup Asset Managers runs the wealth advisory and, in turn, has incorporated a step-down subsidiary in GIFT City that is yet to commence business.
- The Dubai joint venture, Ladderup Wealth International, was wound up in March 2024 after failing to find enough clients in the DIFC.
- Waterproof Corporation became a 50:50 joint venture in October 2020 when one share was transferred, and it is now the surviving entity after absorbing Annapurna Pet and selling off Shree Vinayak Organic.