Wallfort Diversified
Our view on the fund, the AMC, the strategy, the performance & the investment team.
IME's Review of Wallfort Diversified
| Fund Rating | Strategy Rating | Performance Rating |
|---|---|---|
Upgrade | Upgrade | Upgrade |
View on the Fund
While Wallfort has demonstrated very strong performance since inception, they have benefited from a very strong small-cap investing environment, and we are yet to see how their strategies perform during a small-cap downturn. In small-caps, taking on a higher level of risk can help boost performance in strong markets, but can also lead to very sharp drawdowns - this lack of clarity on how the portfolio behaves in a downturn prevents a stronger recommendation.
Strategy
4P Framework
Fund's Strategy View
Wallfort Diversified Alpha aims to build a concentrated portfolio of 15–20 stocks, with a bias towards high-quality mid- and small-cap companies identified early and at valuations below intrinsic worth. The strategy focuses on sectors positioned to benefit from favourable macro trends and structural tailwinds, and selects the most promising businesses within them using its proprietary 4P framework—Promoter integrity, Product moat, Profitability metrics, and Price discipline.
Fund Performance
The fund has outperformed peers & is amongst the top performing schemes in this category in the last 5 year trailing returns. 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.
Trailing Performance
| 1yr | 3yr | 5yr | Since Inception | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wallfort Diversified | -7.9 | 36.6 | 35.5 | 21.9 |
| S&P BSE 500 | 6.5 | 15 | 15 | 15.6 |
| Alpha over Broad Mkt BM | -14.4 | 21.6 | 20.5 | 6.3 |
| Nifty Smallcap 250 | -0.6 | 19.4 | 20.6 | |
| Alpha over Category BM | -7.3 | 17.2 | 14.9 |
Performance as of: 31-Jan-26 | Inception Date: 01-Nov-18 | Performance are post-fees, pre-taxes. Global funds denominated in USD or fund currency.
Investment team
Vijay Bharadia | 3-star rated FM
Principal Officer | 29 yrs Experience | 29 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: Wallfort Financial Services Ltd. (Head of Institutional Desk, Proprietary Fund Management)
Vijay Bharadia, Founder of the PMS division at Wallfort Financial, has over two decades of experience in financial services. Beginning his career in 1997 at Wallfort Financial Services Ltd., he developed expertise in managing proprietary funds, particularly in micro-cap investments, and later served as Head of the Institutional Desk, managing relationships with over 100 institutions. Drawing on his extensive experience, he now leads the PMS division, focusing on delivering exceptional service and driving growth.
Devang Kabra | 2-star rated FM
Partner | 22 yrs Experience | 7 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: Entrepreneurial experience in specialty retail, F&B, outdoor advertising, and real estate development; Managing family funds since 2004
Devang Kabra, Partner & Co-Fund Manager, brings extensive entrepreneurial experience across industries such as specialty retail, F&B, outdoor advertising, and real estate development. Managing his family funds since 2004, his practical business background enables him to identify high-potential investment opportunities. Devang holds an MBA in Marketing from Vishwakarma Institute of Management, Pune.
Kaushal Kedia | 1-star rated FM
FM | 15 yrs Experience
Past Experience: Wallfort PMS (Fund Manager, Wallfort Avenue Fund)
Kaushal Kedia, Fund Manager, has over 10 years of experience in Indian equity markets with expertise in understanding market cycles and identifying sectors at turnaround points. He manages the Wallfort Avenue Fund within Wallfort PMS and is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (2011).
IME's Review of Wallfort PMS
| AMC Rating | Pedigree Rating | Team Rating | Philosophy Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
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View on AMC
Wallfort has done well since inception, with strong performance on their strategies combined with the AMC starting to demonstrate scalability on their business. Our main concern is that the portfolios performance in down markets have not yet been tested.
AMC's Pedigree
Wallfort PMS was founded in 2018 by Vijay Bharadia, formerly with Wallfort Financial Services. The firm has shown encouraging progress in recent years, with its flagship fund crossing ₹200 Cr in AUM and demonstrating maturity with a five-year track record.
AMC Team
Vijay Bharadia (Founder & CIO) is a vetran with the Wallfort financial group, having been involved with the group since 1997 in key investment (proprietary) and institutional equity role. Vijay does come with solid industry experience, but does not have a public fund management track prior to Wallfort PMS. Since inception, the funds have performed well and Viay's fund management track is being built up (even as the true test will come when we see how the portfolios perfom during a downturn).
Investment Philosophy
Wallfort PMS's Four P Investment Strategy offers a disciplined framework focusing on Promoter integrity, Product moat, Profitability, and Price. While the philosophy covers key investment fundamentals, it is relatively generic, making its distinctiveness unclear. Its success will depend on the team's execution and ability to deliver consistent performance.
AMC Background
Wallfort PMS established in 2019, has been built around the philosophy that equity investing is a marathon rather than a sprint, a view shaped by over 25 years of cumulative individual experience across research, proprietary investing, and portfolio advisory.
The firm is led by its Founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer, Vijay Bharadia, who began his career in 1997 at Wallfort Financial Services under the mentorship of Manoj Bharadia, a veteran investor in Indian equity markets. Over his career, he has managed proprietary capital with a strong focus on micro-cap investing and valuations, headed institutional desks managing over 100 institutional relationships, and overseen significant growth in trading and advisory scale. Since the launch of Wallfort PMS, the firm has grown assets organically while maintaining a disciplined, bottom-up investment culture. Governance and strategic oversight are further strengthened through an experienced advisory board comprising professionals with deep expertise across capital markets, market infrastructure, and entrepreneurship, reinforcing the firm’s institutional credibility.
Investment Philosophy
Wallfort PMS follows a bottom-up, investment philosophy designed to identify high-quality businesses capable of delivering superior risk-adjusted returns over the long term. The firm believes that every outperforming company has a distinctive underlying business narrative that enables it to command premium valuations over time. Equity investing is therefore approached as ownership in businesses rather than short-term trading in stocks, with patience and conviction treated as core competitive advantages.
The investment process begins with identifying sectors poised to benefit from macroeconomic trends, government policies, and structural tailwinds. Within these sectors, Wallfort narrows its focus to a small set of top companies or suitable proxy plays, evaluates their competitive moats, and finally applies its proprietary Four P framework as the decisive filter for portfolio inclusion. This layered approach ensures that stock selection is grounded in both top-down context and bottom-up fundamentals, while remaining valuation conscious.
Four P Investment Framework
The Four P framework lies at the heart of Wallfort’s stock selection discipline. The first filter, Promoter, assesses integrity, passion, governance standards, and the promoter’s ability to navigate the business through different market and economic cycles. Management quality and alignment with minority shareholders are considered essential prerequisites for long-term compounding.
The second filter, Product Moat, focuses on the sustainability of the company’s competitive advantage. Wallfort evaluates whether the business operates in an industry structure that allows durable profitability and whether the company’s products or services provide defensible differentiation that can support long-term growth.
The third pillar, Profitability Metrics, examines the financial strength of the business, including margins, return ratios, cash flow generation, and balance sheet resilience. The firm looks for companies with the ability not only to grow earnings but also to sustain and potentially improve profitability through operating leverage, scale, or efficiency gains.
The final pillar, Price Consideration, enforces valuation discipline. Wallfort applies multiple valuation parameters to ensure that quality and growth are not overpaid for, consciously avoiding situations where excessive investor enthusiasm distorts risk-reward asymmetry.
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