Ask PMS

Ask PMS is one of the leading Wealth and Asset Management Company in India that primarily caters to the HNIs (High net worth individuals) and UHNI (Ultra-high net worth individuals) customers. The investment philosophy of the company is capital protection as well as Capital Appreciation.

Ask PMS Review

Ask PMS is a well-known and one of the famous portfolio management services companies in India. Mr Asit Koticha established the company in the year 1983.

Today, it is one of the earliest companies in India to obtain the license of Portfolio management services. The company mainly invests in listed Indian stocks for the clients who have the Indian as well as an offshore domicile.

The company is well-known for its business models and performance of PMS that is managed by a team of well-experienced portfolio managers.

Basically, the company provides:

• Focus on Indian listed stocks.
• Purely discretionary portfolio management service.
• Focuses on the matching of the mindset and investment philosophy of a client during client selection.

The company uses various types of strategies (more on this later) to create an investment portfolio for the clients according to their investment objective and risk-bearing capacity.

The fund managers of the company first give priority to the capital protection of clients over a period of time with capital appreciation.

The investment philosophy of Ask PMS ensures:

• Investing in those businesses which are performing far superior to competitors.
• Believes in pricing the value of a business rather than giving value to the price.
• Portfolio creation by a mixture of different opportunities.
• Buying a growth business with the right price.

The investment approach of the company is not just buying cheap stocks, but high-quality businesses at a fair price. The investment strategies target the investment objective of the client.

The client base of Ask PMS includes HNIs, Pension Funds, Institutions, Family Offices, SWFs, Endowments, and Multi-Managers.

In this article, we will try to cover all important aspects which is required to know before choosing a PMS company like the investment strategies, commission models, PMS types, Investment plans, Performance of strategies and many more.

Also, read PMS Investment Risk

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Ask PMS Types

Ask PMS provides two types of PMS, One is discretionary PMS and another is Non-discretionary PMS. In most of the cases, it is seen that the clients choose discretionary PMS Service.

Actually, in discretionary PMS Service, a client gets an expert to handle their investment portfolio. And the portfolio manager gives his expert knowledge and experience to get a superior result from the investment portfolio of the client.

On the other hand, in non-discretionary PMS, a client handles his own investment portfolio without the interference of a fund manager. Yes, a client can get a suggestion of the fund manager regarding steps that should be taken for the superior result.

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Ask PMS Fund Managers

Ask PMS has a team of expert portfolio managers and researchers. We are going to discuss the full profile of two highly experienced portfolio managers of Ask PMS.

Prateek Agarwal, Business head & Chief executive officer (CIO):

Presently, Mr Prateek Agarwal is working as a Business head & Chief executive officer of Ask PMS. He has been working with the company since 2011.  He worked for many years in the field of finance and equity management.

Before this, he worked as vice president and head of research at SBI Capital Markets Limited. He also worked with Bharti AXA Investment Managers Pvt. Ltd.

He has completed engineering from the Regional Engineering College (Sambalpur University), Rourkela and a postgraduate Diploma in Management from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubneshwar.

Sumit Jain (Senior Portfolio Manager):

Mr Sumit Jain has been working with Ask PMS for the last 11 years. He has overall more than 12 years of experience.

Mr Sumit Jain has been managing the strategy ‘Ask Indian Entrepreneur portfolio’ since its inception. As a fund manager of this particular strategy, the fund has grown upward to INR 5,000 Crore over the last 7 years.

Mr Sumit covers IT and infrastructure businesses at ASK. He has expertise in preparing financial and valuation model at Ask. Before joining Ask PMS, he worked with first Global Tracking US macroeconomy.

He has completed Post graduation in management from Mumbai University.

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Ask PMS Strategies

Ask PMS works on short-term strategy, mid-term strategy, and long-term strategy. All PMS firms mostly work on all these three strategies. But, just like other PMS firms, Ask PMS also has some different and effective strategies which are applied according to the financial objective of the clients.

The core strategy of the company takes the following things into account:

• Each stock should have all attributes (Growth, value, earnings growth, Quality of business) across all the strategies.
• A minimum threshold is required to be passed by each stock by the portfolio of every core strategy.
• More than ‘Average Score’ is required for each attribute.
• At least of the attribute of stock must have the highest score.
• The remaining three attributes should come under high positioning.

Following are the five PMS strategies offered by PMS:

• Ask Growth strategy
• Ask Life strategy
• Ask Indian Entrepreneur portfolio strategy
• Ask Strategic portfolio strategy
• Ask India Select portfolio strategy

Ask Growth Strategy:

Under the growth strategy concept, only those stocks are selected which has high growth opportunity and is a well-established business. The growth must ensure the quality of business, continuous growth of earnings, and the price-value gap should be at the highest level.

The following three things should be on a higher side:

• Large size opportunity enables long-term earnings growth.
• Higher ROEC or quality of business.
• The margin of safety should also be at a higher level.

The benchmark Index under the strategy is NIFTY.

Ask Life Strategy:

The aim of the Ask Life strategy is to invest in those businesses which have consistent and visible growth. The growth should be in Earnings, High-price value gap, a great opportunity to earn long term profit.

Here are some of the criteria, only after that a stock can be added to the investment portfolio.

• Superior ROEC.
• Consistent and long term growth.
• History of capital preservation
• High Pay-out

The benchmark Index under the strategy is BSE 200.

Ask Indian Entrepreneur Portfolio Strategy:

The strategy focuses on the business of those entrepreneurs who have established a long and consistent earnings growth, Capital allocation and distribution, Vision, High standards of governance businesses.

Here are some of the criteria that are required to before adding stock in the portfolio strategy:

• Enough margin of safety
• The superior quality of business
• Consistent earnings growth without dilution of capital.
• The size of the opportunity is high enough for continuous growth.

The benchmark Index of the strategy is BSE 500.

Ask Strategic Portfolio:

The objective of Ask Strategic portfolio is to invest funds in those stocks which has the highest ‘margin of safety’ or ‘Price-value gap’ while at the same time the quality of business, earnings growth, and size of opportunity should be at the highest level. The quality of management should be at the highest level.

Criteria for adding in the investment portfolio.

• ROEC at a superior level.
• Higher earnings growth
• Large size opportunity.

The benchmark Index of the strategy is BSE 200.

Ask India Select Portfolio:

The motive behind the creation of Ask India Select Portfolio is to select those stocks which have all key value-creating attributes. It means all attributes should be present in each stock of the portfolio that is thought to be a parameter for the best-growing stock.

The portfolio should represent the mix of:

• Earnings growth stock
• Opportunity of reasonable size
• Margin of safety
• Price-value gap

The quality of management should be at the highest level as well.

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Ask PMS Returns

Ask PMS performance of portfolios is really attractive and satisfying. It helps the company to make its client base strong.

The rate of portfolio management services returns has been capable of beating the 10-year performance of mutual fund return also.

• The Ask PMS return for the first 3 years is 12%.
• It increases to 14% for 5 years of performance.
• The performance of the portfolio of the company for 7 years is 16%.
• Again, it increases to 17% for 10 years of return.
• And for 11 years plus, the performance is again 17% CAGR.

Hence, on the basis of Ask PMS performance, it can be judged as one of the best performers in the PMS market.

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Ask PMS Investment Plans

Each and every portfolio management company creates some investment plans for the convenience of its customers. So that the customer can make the investment according to their capability of risk and availability of fund.

The investment plans allow each and every category of the client to make portfolio investment as per their eligibility. However, Ask PMS provides four types of investment plans which are:

• Bronze (₹25L – ₹50L)
• Silver (₹50L- ₹1 Cr)
• Gold (₹1Cr – ₹5 Cr)
• Platinum (₹5 Cr & above)

All the above plans have a different range of fund requirement to create an investment portfolio like ‘Bronze’ comes in the range of ₹25L – ₹50l. This plan is for those investors who have a low fund as well as low risk-bearing capacity.

The plan ‘Silver’ is in the range of ₹50 L to ₹1Cr and the plan ‘Gold’ is in the range of ₹1Cr to ₹5Cr. The last plan is ‘Platinum’. This plan fits those investors who come under high-risk appetite category. So, those who want to invest more than ₹5 Cr can opt this investment plan.

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Ask PMS Charges

Every customer is interested to know the different commission models of a company because more model means more option for clients to choose the best one. A client always wants to choose that commission model in which they think they will have to pay less.

Ask PMS house also provides three different types of commission model for their customers. All models are different from each other in term of the basis and percentage of commission.

Now, we are going to discuss each model of commission which are:

Prepaid commission model, Volume-based model, and the last one is profit-sharing commission model.

Prepaid model:

The prepaid commission model is one of the models offered by Ask PMS. A client is required to pay the commission to the fund manager first, then he/she will get PMS service. This model is decided by mutual consent of both the parties.

Actually, the total value of the portfolio/investment is calculated and then a fixed percentage of that investment is paid as a commission. It means if a client wants to invest more, he will have to pay more commission under prepaid commission model.

Volume-based commission model:

This is the second commission model offered by Ask PMS. The Commission paid under this model is based on the total transaction volume. On the basis of the value of total transactions completed within one year commission is charged.

A percentage is fixed by both the parties to be charged as a commission. It is fixed on the basis of the total transaction volume.
But, the matter of concern in this model is, if a portfolio manager increases the volume of the transactions then clients will have to pay more commission. And an unauthentic manager can do it easily. So, the authenticity of the portfolio manager is very important.

Profit-sharing based commission model:

The commission required to be paid under this model is based on the profit generated by the investment portfolio. A slab of percentage and profit is made by both the parties. A certain percentage is charged as a commission of the total profit generated.
A portfolio manager tries his best to generate a higher profit as he can because the manager knows that his commission will increase with the increase in profit.

Now, the below-mentioned table will show the range of profit or the volume of transaction or value of the portfolio with the percentage that will be charged as a commission.

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Ask PMS Charges

There are many other charges also which are charged by the company. The following are the PMScharges which include:

Management charges: This is charged by Ask PMS for the management of the investment portfolio. It is charged on the basis of the commission model opted by both the parties.

Upfront charges: the Upfront charge is just like a prepaid charge which is charged before getting PMS service. The upfront fee is charged in the range of 0.8%-1.8% of total asset value.

Brokerage fee: Brokerage fee is charged by the portfolio manager on the basis of the total number of transactions completed by the portfolio manager. It is normally charged in the range of 0.01%-0.035% of the total transaction value.

Depository charges: It is also known as Depository Participant Charges range between of 0.11%-0.21%.

Custodian charge: Ask PMS charge custodian fee from all of its clients for keeping their portfolio in their custody. The range of the charge is 0.2%-0.3%.

Exit load fee: It is charged on the total amount withdrawn by a client within a year of portfolio creation. Ask PMS charges it in the range of 0.7%-1.4% of the total withdrawal amount. Again, there is no charge applicable if the amount is withdrawn after one year of portfolio creation.

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Ask PMS Benefits

Following are the benefits of portfolio management services from Ask PMS:

• Ask PMS works according to their strict and disciplined investment philosophy. So chances of a good return from the investment portfolio increases.
• The company maintains a strong relationship with each and every client. So that the clients can feel convenience while dealing and can maintain long term relationship with the company.
• Ask PMS has a team of well-qualified and well-experienced fund managers and research analysts who provides a quality portfolio service to the clients with a superior return.
• It has various types of investment plans and commission models. A client can choose any one according to their financial objective, risk appetite and period of return.
• The company has the best understanding of Indian businesses and different types of industries.
• It also focuses on the long term and consistent return out of the investment portfolio.

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Ask PMS Customer Support

Ask PMS provides excellent customer support to the clients. They support their clients from various prospective so that they do not feel any hurdle while dealing with the company.

The very first and important support is that the client can communicate with Ask PMS through Email and call support.

A client with high net-worth can call the fund manager directly from 1-5 times in a month. A relationship manager is also appointed by the company to maintain a strong relationship between the client and the fund manager.

Issue resolving TAT of the company is 15 working days. It is a bit more than most of the PMS houses.

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Ask PMS Conclusion

From the above discussion, it is clear that there a lot of reasons to choose Ask PMS as your portfolio manager. The very important one is, its effective strategies that work on the company’s investment philosophy and finally gives an outstanding return to the portfolio investors.

It also provides flexible investment plans with three different commission models for the convenience of clients. One another favourable point is superior customer support.

So, we can conclude after going through above all discussion, Ask PMS is one of the best PMS services in India.

In case you are looking to use a promising and high-returns providing PMS, then let us assist you in taking the next steps forward:

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Ask PMS FAQs

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about Ask PMS that you should be aware of:

Who can be an ideal investor for PMS?

PMS is ideal for those who:

• Has a desire for long-term wealth creation.
• Want a personalized investment solution.
• Want to invest in equities, structured products, fixed income etc.

What type of investment strategies available with Ask PMS?

The strategies available with Ask PMS are long-term, mid-term, short-term, Value and growth, multi-cap, and international asset.

What are the risks associated with PMS?

Every PMS involves some kind of risk including erosion of principal amount also. The risk depends on the selected security like less risk associated with large-cap companies while the small-cap and mid-cap have higher-risk.

Is it necessary to make any contract between the client and the portfolio manager?

Yes, before starting PMS a contract is required between both the parties.

 

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