As the rally from March lows looks for fresh legs, it is the smaller companies that are attracting interest. Naturally, wealthy investors with smallcap PMS exposure seem to be raking in the moolah. After witnessing a robust 7% average gain in July, the month of August brought good tidings with smallcap PMSes topping the charts as the best schemes clocked double digit gain of upto 25%. Midcap and Multicap PMSes also saw hefty moves upward. Largecaps, which led the rise for past few months, appear tired, and clocked less than Nifty returns in August if you look at category average. In this article, we will take a look at how August 2020 panned out for India’s multi-billion dollar PMS industry. Read on.

Aha August

Portfolio managers, on an average, have done their job in August 2020. Of course, portfolios are not designed with a month in focus. But, every month counts.

In August the broader markets showed volatility but ended up 2.8% for the month. Over 74% PMSes performed better than Nifty this month. This is partly because a substantial portion of PMSes tracked by PMS Bazaar belong to multicap and they did well.

Largecap PMS – Out of 19 PMSes tracked by PMS Bazaar, the best performer was AcePro Advisors Largecap Strategy with a solid 6.30% gain. Other notable winners were Varanium Capital Advisors Large Cap Focused Fund (up 4.20%) and Emkay Investment Managers Emkay’s 12 (up 3.70%). The Largecap PMS category average gain in August is 2.37%, indicating underperformance compared to Nifty’s 2.8%. The worst performer in Largecap PMS was Silverarch India Select Portfolio, which was down 1.02%.

There is a smaller segment of Large & Midcap PMSes. Emkay Lead PMS was the best strategy with 3.4% gain in August. Laggard was Bonanza Growth Portfolio with a mere 0.15% gain.

Midcap PMS – Out of these 16 PMSes tracked, the best performer was Centrum Multibagger (Deep Value I) with 13.9% rise. Other notable performers are Centrum Deep Value IV (up 12.5%) and Phillip Capital Emerging India Portfolio (up 11.74%). Phillip Capital returns are based on initial client reporting format. The category benchmark i.e. Nifty Midcap 100 was up 7.8% in August, lower than the 8.11% midcap PMS category mean. The laggard this month was Asit C Mehta Ace Midcap with 3.2% gain, which looks a dwarf among big returns clocked by peers.

There are about 10 schemes which fall under ‘Small & Midcap’ PMS category. Equirus Securities Long Horizon Fund topped this chart in August with a jump of 15.39%. This was followed by Kotak Small & Mid Cap (up 11.8%) and Valcreate Growing India (up 11.28%). The Small & Midcap PMS category average for August was a healthy 8.9% rise, as midcap and smallcap stocks zoomed. Motilal Oswal IOP (model portfolio) was the segment’s laggard in August with 4.23% gain.

Multicap PMS – This is, by far, the biggest category of strategies tracked, with as many as 101 funds. The best performer in August was Capgrow Capital Advisors Special Situations (up 14.2%), followed by Moneylife MAS Growth (up 12.48%) and Green Portfolio Special (up 10.15%). The BSE 500, which is a multicap benchmark, was up 3.8%. In comparison, multicap PMS category average was 4.79% up, showing outperformance over BSE 500. Multicap PMSes with bias/preference for midcap and smallcap won big this month.

The worst Multicap PMS perfomer in Aug-20 was Credent Asset Management’s Growth Portfolio, which was down nearly 6%. The return is in pre-fees reporting form and for model portfolio.

Smallcap PMS – Out of 12 Smallcap PMS strategies tracked Negen Capital Small Cap Emerging was the best in category as well as overall across-all-categories performer with a whopping 25.13% returns in August, compared to BSE Small Cap index’s 10.10% gain. The other notable performers in this segment include Centrum Micro (up 18.70%) and Marcellus Little Champs (up 18%). The category average return in August was a whopping +13.64%. Laggard of the smallcap category Prabhudas Lilladher Fortune strategy, which was up 2.10%.

Others – Among thematic & sector funds, Valcreate Life Sciences & Specialty Opp. was the numero uno with 9.89% rise in August. NJ Advisory Freedom ETF logged 3.39%, while First Global Indian Multi Asset returned 2.7%. Kotak Pharma was down 0.10%.

Kumar Shankar Roy

Kumar Shankar Roy is contributing editor with RupeeIQ. Kumar is a financial journalist, with a functional experience of 15 years. He tracks mutual funds, insurance, pension, PMS, fixed income/debt and alternative investments markets closely. He has worked for The Times of India, The Hindu Business Line, Deccan Chronicle Group, DNA, and Value Research, among others, across different cities in India. He is deeply interested in marrying data insights with actionable opinion. He can be contacted at [email protected].

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