Amalner - a city of millionaires, thanks to Wipro :: Wipro :: Business :: Amalner ,Wipro
Companies are known to make shareholders a part of their growth story. CNBC-TV18’s George Koshy brings the story of a company that's changed the existence of people in a tiny hamlet near Maharashtra.
60 kms from Jalgaon in Maharashtra, Amalner could be any other little town in India, with it's own small-town gossip and lanes and homes that are more than 250 years old, something that demand a historical antique value in itself. And now, add to it a set of millionaires who have this company to thank for their current status. The story of someone like Arvind Ramchandra and his wife Kapila, who's chance discovery of the value of these sheets of paper his father had left behind in their name turning around their debt infested lives, forever.
Arvind Ramchandra, a farmer in Amalner said, "We were truly going through difficult times and a friend of mine told me, ‘hey, you are a rich man’. I couldn't believe my ears. Then a broker explained to me the true value."
And it's not an isolated incident here at Amalner, the city where the Wipro dreams started as a cupboard-manufacturing unit to then go on to become the software giant that it is today. The surprise element is that a large number of residents here are a part of that growth story
Satish T Khanderia a Share Khan Associate at Amalner said, “Of the one lakh families here, at least 7,000 to 8,000 own Wipro shares to the tune of thousands, 2 lakhs and even 5 lakh shares. As and when they need money, they demat it and sell it."
It all started with just 17,000 shares that Wipro issued to the public at Rs 100 each in 1947. In 1971, the company issued one bonus share for every three shares held, in 1981, it was a one for one offer. And this history of bonus shares kept on moving with time.
Kamla Karmuthe a high school teacher said, “I had 1200 shares. Out of them, I sold 600 shares and bought a farmland. The rest are still in my DMAT account.”
A saving grace, a messiah in disguise or a God send boon, the gratitude that these small towners share in unison is something only they may be able to sum-up better.
