‘Rs 1 lakh to Rs 100 crore’: Jackie Shroff’s investment that yielded more than 1000x just before he declared bankruptcy, wife Ayesha recalls ‘fantastic’ deal

Actor and producer Ayesha Shroff talks about her husband Jackie Shroff's most successful investment, and how they profited from it.

Jackie Shroff with his wife Ayesha Shroff. (Photo: Express Archive)

For actor Jackie Shroff and wife Ayesha Shroff, the 2002 film Boom was a real low point. The couple had just turned to production but despite the stellar cast led by Amitabh Bachchan, the film failed to mark at the box office, and the duo had to declare bankruptcy. But, just before they decided to invest money in the movies, the Shroffs made one of the wisest decisions of their investment career as they invested in Sony Entertainment Television during its launch in India in 1995. In a recent interview, Ayesha talked about that deal and how she helped in making it happen. She also recalled the massive returns from their investment in the business.

Ayesha spoke to Zero1 Hustle’s YouTube channel and remembered it as a “fantastic” experience. “We were setting up Sony Entertainment Television channel in India, and it was a fantastic experience, to be honest. It was my first encounter with a whole corporate structure, and that too, was Sony. We were a group of seven people; my husband brought in the fame and, obviously, his image to the group. We had a banker, a television guy, and another guy well versed in computers, so everyone brought in a special skill to the group. It was a very diverse group, and we tried to woo the company for a whole year. That experience was very exciting, the going back and forth on the deal, the due diligence, the paperwork,” she recalled.

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Ayesha then recalled that the deal got finalised after she threw an unforgettable party for the international executives which was attended by the most popular celebrities of Bollywood. The party did its job and by the end of the night, the executives were ready to sign with the Shroffs. “Now, it’s Sony, so they have a lot of big brands and business houses behind them as well. Because of this, they were reluctant to sign our deal. One day, I suggested to my husband, ‘Let’s just have a party and invite everyone over.’ We weren’t really the party kind, and everyone from the entire film industry showed up. I just thought that the party was a good way to go, and at the end of the day we would either be celebrating, or we would be saying goodbye for good,” she recalled.

After the “crazy night,” Ayesha recalled signing the contract the next day. “We hosted the party at this club called RG’s on Marine Drive back then, and it was a crazy night. At 6 am the party finished, and the boss who had come from all the way to LA said, ‘F*** this, we are signing the contract with this group. We signed the papers the very next day,” she recalled.

Talking about the returns of this massive investment, Ayesha shared, “Entertainment isn’t about the deals and the paperwork; it is about the people. We gave Sony that, and it was the best investment we ever made, and we had a very happy exit from that deal. We actually had a clause in our contract that either all seven of us were going to be in together, or none of us would be. Some of the people wanted to leave, so we got out.”

When asked about the growth in the initial investment and if it was near 200 percent, Ayesha replied, “Much more.” The host pointedly asked her, “If you had invested Rs 100 in that deal, how much did you make at the end of it?” Ayesha said, “It was much more than that, and if you apply that concept to the deal, it was like Rs 1 lakh to Rs 100 crore back then. I don’t think I would have stayed even if the partners wanted to stay on. It was time to leave.”

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