Are the products doing what they promise?
Portfolio managers: who uses them and what they hold
Portfolio managers had 2.2 lakh clients at the end of Jul 2026 and managed ₹4.5 lakh cr of listed shares for them. Most of the industry's money is not individuals' at all: provident funds are 72% of all PMS assets.
Written for investors weighing a PMS, advisers, and readers following India's wealth-management industry. SEBI data to 1 Jul 2026.
How many clients use a portfolio manager?
A PMS account needs at least ₹50 lakh. Discretionary managers decide what to buy; under a non-discretionary mandate the client approves each trade; advisory managers only advise.
PMS clients
Month-end client accounts, Dec 2010 to Jul 2026.
How to read it. Discretionary mandates are 95% of clients. The count is 2.8 times what it was in Dec 2010. The fall in November 2020 is a reporting change, not clients leaving: SEBI moved PMS reporting to a new portal and discretionary assets did not move, so compare counts on one side of the line. The line bridges months when not every manager had reported (clients fall sharply and recover within two months), which are left blank.
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How much in shares do they manage per client?
Listed equity is the part of PMS that individuals use: the provident-fund money is almost all debt. Dividing listed equity by the discretionary and non-discretionary clients gives the shares managed per account.
Listed shares managed by portfolio managers
Month-end listed equity held for clients, by mandate.
How to read it. Listed equity moves with both new money and share prices, so it rises faster in rallies than the client count.
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Listed shares per PMS client
Discretionary plus non-discretionary listed equity over their clients.
How to read it. The average account holds 4 times the ₹50 lakh minimum: ₹2.01 crore of listed shares in Jul 2026. The step up in late 2020 is partly the reporting change, which cut the client count, so compare levels on one side of the line. An average hides a long tail of large accounts.
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Where the money sits
Assets by class in Jul 2026. The two mandates look nothing alike: discretionary money is 86% debt because of the provident-fund mandates below; non-discretionary clients hold far more in shares and mutual funds.
What portfolio managers hold, by mandate
Share of each mandate's assets, latest month.
How to read it. Debt includes plain and structured bonds, listed and unlisted. Mutual funds are units of mutual fund schemes held inside PMS accounts.
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Mutual funds held inside PMS accounts
Discretionary plus non-discretionary, from January 2024.
How to read it. SEBI's series jumps six-fold for December 2023 and settles at a higher level from January 2024, which looks like a change in what managers report, so the chart starts there.
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The provident-fund money
EPFO and other provident funds place most of their bond portfolios with a handful of portfolio managers. That is why PMS assets run to ₹44.1 lakh cr, far more than individuals' accounts could explain.
How much of all PMS money belongs to provident funds
EPFO and other provident funds' share of all assets with portfolio managers, month end, Dec 2010 to Jul 2026.
How to read it. 72% in Jul 2026, against 62% in Dec 2010. Individuals, companies and trusts hold the rest. The gap in 2011 is seven months in which a large manager is missing from SEBI's data.
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SIFs beside portfolio managers
Specialised investment funds, launched in October 2025, sit between mutual funds and PMS: a ₹10 lakh minimum against PMS's ₹50 lakh. In Aug 2026 they had 1.3 lakh folios averaging ₹25 lakh each.
SIF folios and PMS clients
Month end, from SIFs' first month.
How to read it. Folios are accounts, so one investor in two SIFs counts twice; PMS clients are accounts with a manager. The PMS line runs a month behind because SEBI reports with a longer lag.
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The workings
Data
Every chart has a table view, a CSV download and a link to its published JSON. Bundles are listed in data status.