On average, equity PMS investment approaches have delivered 18.99% returns beating the benchmark in the past five financial years (as on March 2024).

Financial experts often recommend long-term equity investments for wealth creation. This strategy applies to equity Portfolio Management Services (PMS) as well. PMS are customised portfolios that typically hold a certain number of stocks.
Looking at a 10-year period ending in March 2024, PMS delivered strong results. The average return during this time was around 18%. Even better, 48 out of 57 PMS tracked by PMS Bazaar for over 10 years generated returns exceeding 15%. This outperformed the Nifty 50 TRI, which returned 14% over the same period.
While the long-term benefits of PMS are clear, what about medium-term performance? Let's see how PMS fared over the past 5 years.
PMS 5-YEAR PERFORMANCE
Indian equity performance
The past five years have been a period of immense challenge for the global and domestic economy. The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath of supply chain disruptions, followed by the Russia-Ukraine war, caused significant economic disruptions. These geopolitical crises triggered a rise in key raw material prices, including crude oil, leading to global inflation and Central Banks raising interest rates to combat it. As a result, stock markets experienced increased volatility. The Indian VIX, a measure of expected short-term market volatility, surged on the day of the Russian invasion to 32 points, reflecting investor anxiety. However, it has gradually come down to 13 (March 2024), indicating a return to some stability.
Despite these global headwinds, the Indian equity market has shown remarkable resilience since 2019. A key factor behind this is the surge in retail investors. The number of demat accounts skyrocketed post-pandemic, with young investors entering the market in droves. The number of Demat accounts in March 2020 stood at roughly about 4 crore. It grew to a whopping 11.4 crore in March 2023 and now (March 2024) stands at 15.1 crore. These retail investors acted as a buffer during heavy foreign investor sell-off periods, providing much-needed stability. Favourable regulatory changes along with India's strong economic growth prospects further bolstered the equity market.
Macro factors help PMS growth
The strong Indian economic story not only attracted retail investors but also sophisticated investors. The number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNIs) in India has steadily increased and is expected to grow in the coming years. By definition, UHNIs are those with a networth of USD 30 million or more while HNIs are those with networth greater than USD 1 million. As per Knight Frank Wealth Reports, the number of UHNIs was 12,287 in 2020 and increased to 13,263 in 2023. By 2028, UHNIs are expected to reach 19,908. Similar trends are seen in the High net-worth individuals (HNIs) population. In 2016, the number of HNIs stood at 4.87 lakh and this number grew to about 7.97 lakh HNIs in 2021. This segment of the population is expected to reach 14.07 lakh in 2026. The demand for professional wealth management services has also grown with the rise of wealthy investors.
HNIs and UHNIs increasingly opt for Portfolio Management Services (PMS) to manage their investments, seeking personalised portfolio management and the potential for superior returns compared to traditional investment options. Sample this, from 1.27 lakh PMS clients (including discretionary, non-discretionary and advisory) in March 2021, it grew to 1.53 lakh in February 2024 as per SEBI data.
As such, in the past 5-years, the average of returns from PMS investment approaches based on PMS Bazaar data stood at 18.99% while Nifty 50 (total return index – TRI) stood at 15.27% and that of BSE 500 TRI was 17.38%. Let’s do a deep dive into the 5-year performance of equity PMS investment approaches.















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