Birla AMC Sp. Opportunities
Birla AMC PMS | Equity | | PMSIME's View on Birla AMC Sp. Opportunities
Strategy
Concentrated Flexi-cap Strategy
Investment Fund
Typically, we are cautious about PMS offerings from mutual fund AMCs. While these platforms benefit from scale, strong distribution, and institutional processes, they often face challenges around fund manager stability and ownership alignment - areas where promoter-driven PMSs tend to excel. However, given the recent performance uptrend, such this strategy can now be considered, though we continue to prefer other stronger players within the same category.
Fund's Strategy View
The core focus would be on approximately 15-25 companies that are primed to benefit from the catalysts mentioned like Micro Turnaround, Macro / Change in the business cycle, Management Change, Deleveraging, Demerger, Mid to Large Cap Potential and Secular Growth Names. Their Philosophy is fairly vague which provides a large leeway for fund managers to invest across sectors & styles. The inclusion of 'secular growth' in a portfolio positioned as special opportunities is a clear indication of such style drift.
Fund Performance
Fund returns are largely in-line with category average returns over the past 5 years. In terms of longer-term annual performance, performance has been highly consistent, with the fund having outperformed it's benchmark in over 80% of annual calendar years.
IME's View on Birla AMC PMS
View on AMC
Birla AMC PMS faces challenges common to large MF-driven PMS firms, such as PMS being treated as an add-on rather than a separate business, high turnover in the investment team, lack of commitment from the CIO, and vague investment strategies. Despite the distribution advantages of the AMC and research resources, MF-driven PMSs usually do not match the success of CIO-led PMS firms.
AMC's Pedigree
Birla AMC is a top-5 Asset Manager in India known for managing mutual fund assets. While being part of a larger asset management house offers synergy benefits, their pedigree in AMC-driven PMS falls short compared to investor-cum-promoter driven PMS's with stable investment teams and defined processes.
AMC Team
Birla PMS has a moderately experienced investment team with synergies from the senior Mutual Fund team. The team has been stable but changes may occur as it is not promoter-driven.
Investment Philosophy
The investment philosophy is vaguely defined, allowing fund managers flexibility to invest in various sectors and styles.
Aditya Birla Capital India Special Opportunities- Investment Strategy
Birla PMS’s India Special Opportunities Portfolio endeavors to exploit the inefficiencies in the market that leads to mispricing of stocks that are fundamentally strong. It also identifies catalysts at both micro and macro level that benefits these stocks and helps unlock their value over a 2-3 year horizon.Portfolio Construction
(65-70%)- Micro turnaround, Macro/change in business cycle, management chage, delevraging, demerger. These catalyst have a highrer upside potential to play out over a period of 2-3 years. (30-35%)- seeking for mid to large cap potentials, secular growth names. These are a consistent performer.Investment Process
- Portfolio Universe- built by applying Quantitative and Qualitative screeners and evaluating ROE/ROCE, leverage and debt servicing and management quality.
- Reject companies which do not filter through these screeners by identifying companies benefit from the catalysts which are micro/macro trunaround, demerger/delevraging and management change.
- Narrowing down the list to 50-60 sticks by having an optimised portfolio by analysing risk reward and having the potential upside of 100% in 3-4 years.
Trailing Performance
| 1yr | 3yr | 5yr | Since Inception | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birla AMC Sp. Opportunities | -12.6 | 15.4 | 21.2 | 15.5 |
| S&P BSE 500 | -6.6 | 14.7 | 19.2 | 14.2 |
| Alpha over Broad Mkt BM | -6 | 0.7 | 2 | 1.3 |
Performance as of: 30-Sep-25 | Inception Date: 14-Jun-18 | Performance are post-fees, pre-taxes. Global funds denominated in USD or fund currency.
Investment team
Sameer Narayan | 2-star rated FM
Head | 24 yrs Experience | 5 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: SVP-Adani Advisory
Sameer has more than 20 years of experience in Indian equity markets. In his role as Principal Officer, Sameer will be responsible for the PMS division within the firm. His last assignment was with Adani Advisory LLP as Sr. Vice President where he established the Family Office and was responsible for advising investments in Indian equities. In the past, he has also worked with BNP Paribas Investments managing onshore and offshore funds under Portfolio Management Services. Sameer has also worked with SSKI, Enam Securities and Motilal Oswal in the Research Function. He holds Masters in Management Studies (MMS) from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Mumbai and B.E degree with specialization in Production Engineering.
Salvin Shah | 2-star rated FM
FM | 15 yrs Experience | 4 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: Sanctum, Edelweiss Securities & Athena Investment Management
Salvin Shah has 10+ years in Portfolio Management and Equity Research, He has extensive experience in managing Indian Equities. He has been successful at identifying themes and stocks at a very early stage which has resulted in multi-bagger returns for the investors. Prior to joining Aditya Birla AMC, he worked with Sanctum Wealth Management as Co-fund Manager in their PMS business. Before Sanctum, Salvin was a part of equity research team at Edelweiss Securities and Athena Investment Management.
