Marcellus PMS
PMSIME's View on Marcellus PMS
AMC View
Marcellus offers strong investment options for those interested in high quality companies, but their lack of flexibility in investment approach hinders performance across market conditions. Recent weak performance and limited portfolio repositioning capabilities contribute to lower ratings for the seasoned investment team.
AMC Pedigree
Marcellus, a respected PMS house, was founded by the core team behind Ambit's investment business. They have a strong focus on investing in high-quality franchises. While Marcellus got off to a very strong start, their very aggressive focus on their investment philosophy on high-quality franchises (even willing to ignore valuations) has limited their ability to reposition portfolios as the market cycle turned leading to very sharp underperformance which has adversely impacted their reputation in recent times.
Team Pedigree
Marcellus has a strong investment management team led by highly experienced professionals Saurabh and Rakshit, who possess strong track records and research credentials. The team's longevity and leadership as founders ensure stability in their philosophy and practices.
Investment Philosophy
Marcellus prioritizes investing in top-quality businesses with strong management and transparent accounting practices, following this philosophy consistently across all their strategies. While the philosophy has very clear merit, the issue can be that this is followed very rigorously, which does reduce the flexibility that the fund manager has to reposition the portfolio during economic upcycles & strong bull markets - where many sectors & companies with lower quality scores may be driving performance.
AMC Background
Marcellus Investment Managers was founded in 2018 by a highly successful investment team comprising Saurabh Mukerjea, Pramod Gubbi, and Rakshit Ranjan—who were key drivers of Ambit Investment Management’s growth prior to setting up Marcellus. At Ambit, the team delivered multiple years of strong outperformance by investing in high-quality business franchises with the highest standards of corporate governance.
Backed by this strong founding pedigree, Marcellus has scaled rapidly in a short period to become one of the largest and most respected PMS providers in India, ranking among the top PMS houses by assets.
Investment Philosophy
Marcellus follows a clearly articulated investment philosophy focused on making long-term investments in high-quality business franchises. The philosophy is built around three core pillars:
- Clean Accounts: Extensive use of forensic accounting and capital allocation analysis to identify companies with clean, transparent financials. This acts as a primary filter for narrowing the investible universe.
- Capital Allocation: Preference for companies with a proven track record of prudent and efficient capital allocation that enhances long-term shareholder value.
- Competitive Advantage: Focus on businesses with durable competitive moats that can sustain superior returns over long periods, even if it requires paying premium valuations for top-quality franchises.
Portfolio Construction & Style
Marcellus applies this philosophy consistently across its strategies by investing in a concentrated portfolio of high-conviction ideas. The emphasis remains on business quality, governance, and longevity of earnings rather than short-term valuation comfort. This approach represents a continuation of the same quality-focused strategy that the team successfully executed during its tenure at Ambit.
Suitable For
Investors seeking exposure to the very highest quality businesses, with a long-term compounding mindset and an understanding that such strategies may underperform during strong momentum-driven bull markets.
Investment team
Rakshit Ranjan | 4-star rated FM
Fund Manager | 22 yrs Experience | 7 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: Ambit Capital (FM), Lloyds Banking (Director Research), Noble & Co (Analyst)
Rakshit has a strong investment management track record, having launched Ambit's Coffee-Can PMS in Mar-17, which he ran till Dec-18. The Coffee-Can PMS was one of the best-performing PMS schemes in 2018. Prior to setting up the Coffee-Can PMS, Rakshit was the lead consumer analyst at Ambit. His earlier experience was in UK equities at the Lloyds & Noble groups.
Saurabh Mukherjea | 5-star rated FM
Founder & CIO | 28 yrs Experience | 7 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: Ambit Capital (CEO), Noble (Head of India Equities), Accenture (Consultant), London Economics (Consultant)
Saurabh comes with a very strong investments background, having helped build Ambit's broking, wealth & investment management businesses as CEO. He was also responsible for building Execution Nobles India broking business (which was sold to Ambit) and having set up and sold Clear Capital (a UK based small cap research fund). Saurabh is a strong believer in investing in the long-term in very high quality clean businesses and has written a number of books including Gurus of Chaos, The Unusual Billionaires and Coffee Can Investing.
Ashvin Shetty | 3-star rated FM
Portfolio Manager | 22 yrs Experience | 7 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: Analyst (Ambit), Analyst (Execution Noble), Statutory Auditor (KPMG)
Ashvin Shetty has more than a decade of experience in equity research. Previously, at Ambit, he led the coverage on automobile sector from 2010 to 2017. Ashvin was recognised multiple times for his stock picking abilities. He was ranked in Starmine Analyst Awards 2013 and 2016 as a lead auto analyst. He later moved onto become a senior analyst for Ambit's Mid and Small cap PMS funds till November 2018. Prior to joining Ambit, he worked with Execution Noble as an analyst covering consumer and media space. He has also worked with KPMG's and Deloitte's statutory audit departments from 2004 to 2007 gaining extensive experience across Indian accounting standards and financial statement analysis. Ashvin is a BCom graduate from Narsee Monjee College (Mumbai). He is a qualified Chartered Accountant (ICAI India) and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA Institute, USA).
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