Private equity firm Home First Finance Company has released its financial report for the last financial year. The company has reported 33 percent year-on-year increase in profits. Their net profit has increased from Rs 48 crore to Rs 64 crore. The loan disbursements increased to Rs 869 crore in the last quarter. The market cap of the company is Rs 6247 crore.
The company was co-founded by Indian businessman Jaithirth "Jerry" Rao, who had founded and sold a software company named Mphasis. He also founded Value and Budget Housing Corporation (VBHC), a company that set out to build affordable houses which prove to be the 'Maruti of Real Estate'. He had started the software company in California in 1998 which became one of the top 10 IT/BPO companies in India. It was acquired by EDS.
Before this, he spent two decades in the banking sector. He worked with Citibank for several years.
Rao did his graduation from Loyola College, Chennai. He later did his MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. He also did the same course from the University of Chicago.
He is a visiting teacher at IIM Ahmedabad, IIT Bombay and LIBA Chennai.
According to reports, he had sold his company in 1998 for 380 million dollars (Rs 3100 crore).
His real estate company builds apartments in the countryside.
He noticed that most banks weren't ready to finance houses of low income groups.
Rao also served as the chairman of NASSCOM.
He also teaches in IIT Bombay.
Home First Finance Company was founded in 2010. It provides home loans, loans against property. It also provides loans for the building of houses.
The company's co-founders are PS Jayakumar and Manoj Viswanathan.
In 2013, Tata Capital Growth Fund also picked up a minority stake in the company. The Tata company was founded by Ratan Tata when was the chairperson of the group.
The Home First Finance Company was founded as the trio wanted to solve the problem of providing financing to low-income groups.
In FY 2020, the company had 50,000 customers and 800 employees.
