Ambit Emerging Giants
Ambit PMS | Equity | | PMSIME's View on Ambit Emerging Giants
Strategy
Concentrated Small-Cap Strategy
Investment Fund
Would recommend that investors seeking to invest in this strategy invest instead with the strategy's original team who now runs a similar strategy at Marcellus (which carries lower churn risk and a team that prudently follows the philosophy).
Fund's Strategy View
Focused on only investing in small caps with market-dominating franchises and a track record of clean accounting, governance and capital allocation, Ambit's Emerging Giant's PMS helps reduce a large part of the risk of investing in small caps. The Strategy focuses on investing in 15-20 businesses with minimal or zero leverage and ethical, prudent management. For small-cap investments, the emphasis is on the quality of business and management, a paramount aspect for Ambit
Fund Performance
The fund has underperformed peers & is amongst the worst performing schemes in this category in the last 5 year trailing returns. In terms of longer-term annual performance, performance consistency is weak, with the fund having underperformed it's benchmark in more years than having outperformed.
IME's View on Ambit PMS
View on AMC
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's 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.
AMC Team
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.
Ambit Investment Advisors Emerging Giants- Investment Strategy
Ambit PMS’s Emerging GIants portfolio aims to invest in small-cap companies with market-dominating franchises and a track record of clean accounting, governance and capital allocation.Power of the Giants
These companies are selected on the basis of:- Rigorous business selection process
- Long term horizon
- having a low churn and concentrated portfolio
Investment Philosophy
Following a risk minimization philosophy:- Consistent track record
- Strong Corporate governance
- Market leaders
- Clean accounting
- Power of compounding
INVESTMENT PROCESS
Filter companies based on two factors:- Qualitative factors: Incremental Capex year-on-year, sales growth, PBIT margin, efficiency in capital employed turnover, D/E, equity dilution, CFO.
- Quantitative factors: Sebi defined small-cap companies, median market-cap Rs.4700 cr, the efficiency of capital allocation, quality of accounts, bottom-up research, and concentrated portfolio of 15-20 companies leading to the low churn of 15-20%.
Trailing Performance
| 1yr | 3yr | 5yr | Since Inception | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ambit Emerging Giants | -18.8 | 3.6 | 13.6 | 11.5 |
| S&P BSE 500 | -6.6 | 14.7 | 19.2 | 13.6 |
| Alpha over Broad Mkt BM | -12.2 | -11.1 | -5.6 | -2.1 |
| Nifty Smallcap 250 | -9.3 | 21.5 | 27.2 | |
| Alpha over Category BM | -9.5 | -17.9 | -13.6 |
Performance as of: 30-Sep-25 | Inception Date: 01-Dec-17 | Performance are post-fees, pre-taxes. Global funds denominated in USD or fund currency.
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.
