ASK Emerging Opportunities
ASK PMS | Equity | | PMSIME's View on ASK Emerging Opportunities
Strategy
High-growth, diversified investments.
Investment Fund
This scheme is currently not under our coverage universe.
Fund's Strategy View
The ASK Emerging Opportunities fund seeks to invest in high-growth companies in emerging markets with strong competitive advantages and potential for long-term growth. The fund focuses on bottom-up stock selection and diversification to capture opportunities in sectors such as technology, healthcare, consumer goods, and financial services.
Fund Performance
The fund has underperformed peers & is amongst the worst performing schemes in this category in the last 5 year trailing returns.
IME's View on ASK PMS
View on AMC
ASK is the market leader with a strong investment policy and in-house team. Blackstone acquired a majority stake in their asset management business. Their rating has been downgraded to 4-star due to recent underperformance, but an upgrade to 5-star is possible as performance improves.
AMC's Pedigree
ASK is a leading PMS provider known for delivering sustainable long-term returns with minimal risk. Post Blackstone acquiring a majority stake in ASK in 2022, ASK is now a blackstone company.
AMC Team
Led by Bharat Shah, ASK has a strong and stable investment team which focuses on developing fund managers from their research team aligned with ASK's investment philosophy. While ASK recently lost their long-term CIO Prateek Agarwal to Motilal in Oct-22, they have been able to fill this vacancy with George Joseph joining as the CIO while Sumit Jain (the interim CIO when Prateek left) continuing to play the role of a deputy CIO.
Investment Philosophy
Traditionally ASK followed a GARP investment philosophy (focusing on buying high-qualty businesses, with consistent earnings growth available at the right price). Under George Joseph, this philosophy has been tightened into what they call their FOCUS Philosophy (F - Fundamentals, O - Opportunity Size & Scale, C - Cycles & Capital Allocation, U - Unmatched Moats, S - Safety). The aim is to follow a fundamental-investment philosophy (F - Fundamentals) focused on high-quality companies (U - Unmatched moats) with attractive growth potential (O - Opportunity size) and available at the right valuations (S - Safety), while being aware of underlying business & market cycles (C - Cycles & Capital Allocation).
Investment Philosophy
ASK Emerging Opportunities Series 2 is a mid-cap focussed (15000 Cr+ market cap) concentrated portfolio.
ASK’s investment philosophy revolves around 2 key aspects: capital protection followed by capital appreciation. The aim is to invest in high-quality businesses, run by high-quality management with sustained long-term growth prospects at a reasonable price. The focus is on certainty & consistency of earnings (vs. mere quantum of earnings growth) & buying high quality at a reasonable price (vs. buying mediocre companies at value prices).
KEY ASPECTS OF INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY
Investments in ASK India Select Portfolio are driven by the following key investment attributes:
- Size of Opportunity: Size of Pond vs. Size of Fish, Dominance, Resilience, Liquidity
- Quality of Business: High quality of business (superior ROCE), Strong moat, Impregnability, Sustainability, Key pivot of strong wealth creation
- Earnings Growth: Quantum, Consistency, Durability, Predating (early vs later), Compounding power
- Value: Favourable price-value gap, Margin of Safety
- Management Quality: Good management quality is a given constant
PORTFOLIO CONSTRUCTION
- Research: filter down top 500 companies as per market capitalisation to 95 companies based on subjective evaluation of management quality, minimum ROCE, 20% growth rate over 3-5 years.
- Portfolio: 25-30 companies with a 10% individual stock exposure limit (at cost), sectoral diversification and a healthy balance between ROCE and Earnings Growth.
INVESTMENT PROCESS
- Market Capitalization Filter: Filter top 500 stocks as per market capitalization
- Management Quality Assessment: Based on evaluation of management integrity, vision, execution, capital allocation skills and capital distribution filter out 310 Companies
- ROCE Criteria: Filter 230 companies based on a minimum of 15% ROCE
- Earnings Growth Criteria: Filter 95 stocks with minimum 20% annual earnings growth over the next 3-5 years.
- Overall Quality with Margin of Safety: Final portfolio of 25-30 stocks with an optimal blend of overall characteristics with a reasonable margin of safety.
Trailing Performance
| 1yr | 3yr | 5yr | Since Inception | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASK Emerging Opportunities | -12.3 | 8.1 | 15.4 | 10.7 |
| S&P BSE 500 | -6.6 | 14.7 | 19.2 | 14 |
| Alpha over Broad Mkt BM | -5.7 | -6.6 | -3.8 | -3.3 |
Performance as of: 30-Sep-25 | Inception Date: 24-Aug-17 | Performance are post-fees, pre-taxes. Global funds denominated in USD or fund currency.
Investment team
Bharat Shah | 5-star rated FM
Executive Director | 34 yrs Experience | 18 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: Senior FM (Birla MF)
Bharat Shah is a highly respected investments professional, having overseen the growth of ASK PMS to the largest PMS in India over 2 decades. Prior to joining ASK, Bharat Shah was a very well respected equity fund manager at Birla PMS, known for large wealth creation in IT picks. Bharat Shah has been on the board of ASK since 2008.
George Heber Joseph | 4-star rated FM
CIO | 23 yrs Experience | 0 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: JIO BlackRock (CIO), ITI MF (CIO), ICICI Pru (Sr. FM)
George Heber Joseph has been appointed as the new CIO of ASK PMS, bringing with him over 20 years of extensive investment management experience. He played a key role in establishing Jio BlackRock AMC, where he served as CIO, and previously spent more than a decade at ICICI Prudential AMC, managing over USD 2 billion in assets across equity strategies. He has also held leadership roles at ITI AMC. George is a Chartered Accountant and a Management Accountant, with a strong track record in building and managing high-performing investment teams and portfolios.
Sumit Jain | 4-star rated FM
Deputy CIO | 20 yrs Experience | 20 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: First Global (Analyst)
Sumit has been with the ASK group for over 15 years, having started as an analyst to now being responsible for managing portfolios. Prior to joining ASK, Sumit worked as an analyst at First Global tracking the US macroeconomy and the FMCG sector.
Sandip Bansal | 3-star rated FM
Deputy CIO | 22 yrs Experience | 4 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: FM & Head Investment Research (SBI Life), Sell-side Research Analyst (UBS, KIE)
Sandip has 20 years of work experiene (14 of which have been in equity research). Sandip has a strong research & fund management experience, having worked as Fund Manager & Head of Research at SBI Life Insurance prior to joining ASK. Prior to SBI Life, Sandip worked at the sell side with UBS & Kotak Securities. Sandip in a CA and an MBA (IIM-A)
