Portfolio Management Services
Portfolio Management Service (PMS) is a facility offered by a portfolio manager with the intent to achieve the required rate of return within the desired level of risk. An investment portfolio can be a mix of stocks, fixed income, commodities, real estate, other structured products, and cash. A portfolio manager is a licensed investment professional who specializes in analyzing the investment objectives of the investor and has a vast knowledge of the various instruments in the market. The portfolio manager is better positioned to make informed decisions for investments in securities as opposed to a layman.
PMS is a customized service offered to High Net-worth Individuals (HNI) clients with a minimum investment size of Rs.50 Lacs. The service is tailored as per the investor’s return requirements and the ability and willingness to assume the risk. An Investment Policy Statement (IPS) is drafted by a PMS to understand the financial position and needs of the client. The portfolio manager ensures that the return requirements coincide with the risk profile. Before executing the optimum portfolio, PMS also studies the various constraints such as time horizon, tax applicability, liquidity, and other unique considerations of the client.
What are the types of Portfolio Management Services?
- Active Portfolio Management: This form of portfolio management aims at beating the performance of a market index such as Nifty. An active portfolio manager will take different positions than that of the tracking index, actively buy and sell securities as per institutional research to create more returns than the index. However, to generate an excess return, the strategy undertakes a higher level of risk.
- Passive Portfolio Management: Such a PMS strategy aims to mimic the performance of an index by investing in the same securities with similar weights. This is known as indexing or index investing. The transaction costs, resulting from securities turnover, are low as compared to active management as the portfolio churning is at a minimum. However, incurring transaction costs leads to an overall return being lower than the tracking index. The returns of the portfolio are pegged to the market returns. Therefore, the variance in returns is low.
- Discretionary Portfolio Management: The portfolio manager is given complete control of the portfolio and is free to adopt any strategy which is suitable to the IPS. Such PMS demand higher involvement for decision making justifying higher fees associated with discretionary portfolio management. This is the best option for clients with limited time and knowledge of investing
- Non-discretionary Portfolio Management: The PMS will only suggest investment ideas while the investor will be responsible for choosing the recommendation and timing. This employs PMS in an advisory capacity as the final call rests with the investor instead of the portfolio manager.