Ambit PMS
PMSIME's View on Ambit PMS
AMC View
Ambit PMS is in a sustained phase of evolving its core investment team, following the departure of key members to establish Marcellus in 2018. While Ambit's founding leadership remains stable, significant additions and changes within the investment management functions, particularly at the portfolio manager level, have occurred primarily since 2020-2021. For instance, the Head of PMS & Portfolio Manager joined in around 2021, and the fund manager for their flagship Coffee Can Portfolio was appointed as recently as late 2023. This indicates that a substantial part of the current core investment team is relatively new in their specific roles at Ambit post-2020. The risk of further talent migration remains a key concern, potentially impacting strategy consistency and long-term performance stability during this rebuilding phase.
AMC Pedigree
Ambit PMS, part of the Ambit Group known for its strengths in investment banking and equity research, focuses on investing in high-quality businesses with strong accounting and corporate governance standards.
Team Pedigree
Ambit PMS rebuilt its core investment team after the 2018 Marcellus exodus; this largely non-founding team has consolidated primarily since 2020. Consequently, Ambit's pre-2018 track record is not applicable to the current team, and the relative newness of this core unit implies that churn risk remains a key concern for investors.
Investment Philosophy
Ambit's investment philosophy focuses on acquiring high-quality businesses with strong management and clean accounting, which is consistently applied across all strategies.
PMS Background
Ambit PMS is part of the Ambit group (a highly respected financial services brand with strengths in investment banking, investment management & equities research). It has scaled in prominence on the back of the strong performance of their PMS strategies driven by investing in high-quality businesses with clean accounting standards. Part of the Highly Respected Ambit Group but has seen Exits of Senior Investment Professionals Ambit PMS benefits not only from its group's heritage but also for its own clear positioning of investing in only the highest quality businesses with impeccable accounting & corporate governance standards. However, senior investments team of Ambit PMS left to form Marcellus in 2018 and a few others joined Avendus.PMS Investment Philosophy
Ambit follows a very clearly defined investment philosophy that essentially seeks to make long-term investments in high-quality business franchises. Their investment approach has 3 core pillars- Clean Accounts: A combination of forensic accounting & capital allocation assessments help determine how clean a company’s books are. This helps narrow the investible universe (Saurabh has been one of the foremost experts in the use of forensic accounting to identify potential issues in company accounts)
- Capital Allocation: Invest only in companies with a strong track record of efficient capital allocation
- Competitive Advantage: Seek to only invest in companies that have very strong competitive moats Ambit is known for a rigorous following of these quality filters and to invest in only the highest quality companies (often willing to pay very high premiums to invest in top quality franchises).
Investment Approach
- Building a Proprietary research-backed framework
- Following a disciplined and process-driven approach
- Investment in high quality businesses
- Long-term investments with low churn
Investing on long-term objective in high quality business based on clean accounting standards, efficient capital allocation and having a competitive advantage (willing to pay high premiums).
Suitable For Investor's seeking to invest in the very highest quality companies (regardless of valuations), to benefit from the LT compounding benefit of high quality businesses. This strategy could potentially underperform in strong bull markets.Investment team
Siddharth Bothra | 3-star rated FM
FM | 21 yrs Experience | 2 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: Motilal Oswal MF (FM), Aclehmy (Analyst)
Siddharth has more than two decades of experience in equities and asset management. His expertise spans large-cap, midcap, flexicap and hybrid funds. Prior to Ambit, He was in Motilal Oswal for 18 years and was the FM for their Focused 25 and Hybrid Fund.
Trilok Agarwal | 2-star rated FM
FM | 18 yrs Experience | 3 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: Birla Life Insurance (FM), Dymon Asia Consultant (Investment Consultent)
Trilok has over 16 years of experience in Investment Management. Prior to Ambit, he as a key Investment member at Aditya Birla Sun Life managing funds over 500mn$, He was also associated with Dymon Asia Capital briefly.
Bhargav Buddhadev | 3-star rated FM
FM | 19 yrs Experience | 2 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: Kotak MF (FM)
Bhargav has over 18 years of experience in equity research. Prior to joining Ambit, he worked with Kotak Mutual Fund and also worked with Ambit Institutional Equities.
