The doyen of Indian cinema, Amitabh Bachchan and his actor-son Abhishek appear to have scripted their own success story in their personal financial investments also. The father-son duo had made an investment in 2015, of $250,000 in a Singapore-based firm and this company was sold to another firm and the current value of their investment is being quoted at $17.5 million, after a period of just 2.5 years. The main reason for this phenomenal jump in the stock’s value is the operations of Ziddu.com, where the investment stands parked now, being involved in the Bitcoin trade. As is widely known, the price of the digital or cryptocurrency Bitcoin, has virtually hit the roof trading at over $18,000 each (it started at around $1,000 in the beginning of 2017).
Now, to the details of how this came about.
Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan invest an amount of $250,000 in a company called Meridian Tech Pte. This firm was founded by Venkata Srinivas Meenavalli and was dealing in cloud storage and e-distribution as a startup venture when the investment was made in 2015. Just last week, Meridian’s prime asset Ziddu.com got taken over by another firm, LongFin, which also belongs to the same Meenavalli Group and is listed on NASDAQ. Interestingly, the business of Ziddu.com is being described as “a Blockchain technology empowered solutions provider” that offers microfinance using “cryptocurrencies across continents”.
And this mention of cryptocurrencies was sufficient to send the market going crazy with the price of the stock being quoted, at a premium of 2,500% over its listed price. According to a text message released by the founder Meenavalli, the Bachchans’ holding in the new entity works out to 250,000 shares and at the price of $70 per LongFin share being last quoted, the value of the investment works out to $17.5 million or ₹114 crores.
LongFin has explained that Ziddu.com has what it calls “Ziddu Warehouse Coin”, which is basically a form of funding against warehouse receipts, which the traders use, to convert to cryptocurrencies for their business use. The Ziddu coins are largely traded against Ethereum and Bitcoin, the two most popular cryptocurrencies.
Experts are divided on the future of the cryptocurrency, particularly Bitcoin. Will the frenzy continue? Will the bubble burst, sooner or later? These are questions still being hotly debated. Meanwhile, the Bachchans have to decide whether they wish to cash in on this boom or hold on to the investment.