Optimus Finance began life as a small lending firm in Gujarat, but its real story started in 2015 when it created a subsidiary to trade base oils - the raw material for lubricants - and turned itself into the holding company at the centre of a cross-border industrial group. Today, the Vadodara-based entity is a listed NBFC that does very little lending of its own; instead, it holds controlling stakes in operating businesses that manufacture, trade, and distribute lubricants across the Middle East and Africa, with a newly planted flag in Indian real estate. The recurring pattern is a lean parent that parks its capital in subsidiaries and lets them run, building each new leg on the cash flows and market knowledge of the one before.
Business segments
Three engines at different stages - a cross-border lubricants platform that generates nearly all the group’s substance, a legacy NBFC book that now mostly holds the stake in that platform, and a real-estate venture that has yet to begin.
1. Lubricants and base oils: the group’s operating business
The group sources raw materials from India, blends them into finished lubricants in the UAE and Kenya, and sells across the Middle East and Africa - a single integrated chain from import to factory to customer.
- Sourcing hub in India - Maximus International Limited, the listed Indian subsidiary, imports and exports lubricant oils and different types of base oils, acting as the group’s merchant-exporter and raw-material nerve centre.
- Dedicated sales arms in the region - Maximus Global FZE in Sharjah markets and trades the products across the Middle East and Africa, while MX Africa Limited in Nairobi handles sales and distribution in East Africa, reaching customers in Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda.
- Products for factories and fleets - the output spans automotive, industrial, and specialty lubricants that go into metalworking, refrigeration, electrical systems, paint, and ink industries, so the customer base is spread across multiple industries.
2. Financing and investment: the holding-company core
The NBFC licence is the legal shell that holds the group’s crown jewel - a controlling stake in the lubricants subsidiary worth far more on the market than on the parent’s books.
- Loans are small and mostly internal - the standalone loan book stood at ₹6.26 crore as of March 2025, with over a third of that extended to related parties within the group, so credit risk is largely circular. The company used to run a retail vehicle-loan business but discontinued it, leaving a portfolio that management describes as carrying minimal loss risk.
- The real asset is the MIL stake - OFL holds 78.33 crore equity shares in its listed subsidiary Maximus International Limited, carried on the books at ₹6.51 crore but with a market value of ₹79.04 crore as of March 2025, meaning the balance sheet understates the parent’s true economic interest by a factor of roughly twelve.
- Lean by design - the NBFC operates with almost no staff (just two permanent employees as of FY23) and funds itself partly through modest borrowings, including an unsecured loan of ₹21.39 lakh from another finance company at 8.5%.
- Trading adds a side income - the company also buys and sells marketable securities and mutual fund units, holding shares as inventory, which gives the parent a small, opportunistic revenue stream beyond dividends from its subsidiaries.
3. Real estate and infrastructure: the option on tomorrow
A wholly owned subsidiary was incorporated in July 2024 to enter property and construction, but as of that date it had not yet started any activity - it is a shell with a mandate.
- Incorporated to diversify - Maximus Infra Ventures Limited was set up to pursue residential and commercial real estate as well as infrastructure and construction opportunities, adding a third leg to a group that already spans finance and lubricants.
- Clean structure, no history - OFL holds 100% of the subsidiary’s equity (10,000 shares subscribed in cash), and the entity is registered in Gujarat with an authorised capital of ₹1 lakh, but operations had not commenced as of mid-2024.
Group structure and partners
The group is a pyramid of wholly or majority-owned subsidiaries stretching from Gujarat to the UAE and Kenya, with a promoter holding company at the top and no joint ventures anywhere.
- Promoter and listing - Sukruti Infratech Private Limited owns 53.89% of OFL, which is itself listed on the BSE main board after migrating from the SME platform in 2019.
- The lubricants chain - OFL holds a controlling stake in BSE-listed Maximus International Limited, which in turn owns 100% of the UAE trading hub Maximus Global FZE and the Kenyan sales arm MX Africa Limited; those two entities each own a manufacturing subsidiary - Maximus Lubricants LLC in Ras Al Khaimah and Quantum Lubricants (E.A.) Limited in Nairobi, both wholly owned subsidiaries.
- No shared control - the group has no joint ventures or associate companies, so all decision-making and economic interest runs through the wholly owned or majority-held chain.
- Capital history - the equity base was expanded through a warrant conversion in January 2023 that brought in ten non-promoter strategic investors, and a stock split in March 2025 sub-divided shares from a face value of ₹10 to ₹1 each.