In the 80s, Jackie Shroff was one of the most popular and bankable young actors around. With hits like Hero, Karma, Ram Lakhan, and Tridev, he was among the few stars who could command the masses. But in the 90s, as younger stars took over, Jackie began to take on more supporting roles. He even saw near-financial ruin when his home production, Boom, was a bomb at the box office. Yet, by the mid-2000s, Jackie was among the richest men in Bollywood. And it was not by appearing on camera, but through some extremely smart investment.
Jackie Shroff’s ‘ ₹ 1 lakh to ₹100 crore’ investment
In 1994, after the Union Government announced the New Economic Policy of globalisation and liberalisation, international players entered the Indian cable television market. Many media conglomerates like Star entered the Indian market. Jackie and his wife, Ayesha, were instrumental in getting Sony Entertainment Television to begin its operations in India.
In an interview with Zero1 Hustle’s YouTube channel, Ayesha and her daughter, Krishna Shroff, spoke about how Jackie and Ayesha invested in Sony’s India business in the 90s. “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,” recalled Ayesha.
Ayesha said that Sony was initially not convinced to let Jackie and his group on board, because they wanted bigger investments. But the Shroffs convinced them by hosting a party for the Sony heads, which was attended by the who’s who of Bollywood. “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,” said Ayesha.
Jackie and the group eventually exited their investment, taking home several times what they had invested. When the host quizzed Ayesha about whether the return was close to 200%, she said it was ‘much more’. When asked how much they made, Ayesha said, “If you apply that concept to the deal, it was like ₹1 lakh to ₹100 crore back then.”
That is a staggering one million per cent return on investment. In the mid-2000s, when Jackie exited the deal and pocketed the returns, this would have made him among the richest actors in India, only behind the likes of the three Khans and Amitabh Bachchan.
Jackie Shroff net worth
That payout has helped Jackie and his family start a business empire that is outside of films as well. The actor reportedly has a net worth of close to ₹400 crore today, courtesy of investments in sports leagues, hospitality and more. He continues to act in a variety of films, and was most recently seen in Housefull 5, Good Bad Ugly, and Tanvi The Great.
Jackie will be next seen in Tu Meri Main Tera Main Tera Tu Meri, which stars Kartik Aaryan and Ananya Panday in the lead roles. Directed by Sameer Vidhwans, the film is currently filming and should release in 2026.
