India's PMS industry AUM rises 2% to ₹44.11 lakh crore in July

Discretionary management remains the dominant structure inside PMS, holding 84.7% of industry AUM and 95.5% of client accounts. Among service categories, co-investment posted the fastest monthly AUM growth at 10.2%, followed by advisory at 3%, non-discretionary at 2.9% and discretionary at 1.8%. Co-investment, which ties client money to specific deals or assets rather than a continuously managed portfolio, grew more than five times as fast as discretionary. Advisory and co-investment both outpaced the 2% rise in total AUM, though each starts from a smaller base.

The industry added its most distributors of any month this fiscal year, with 1,226 individual and 181 non-individual distributors joining in July. The compendium also counted 534 SEBI-registered portfolio managers.

Domestic investors stayed the core of the book, holding 91% of the client base and 95% of total AUM. Plain debt, straightforward fixed-income holdings, remained the largest asset class at 83% of the portfolio.

"The PMS industry has reached a scale where its next phase must be defined by greater and wider investor participation, coupled with greater ease of investing," APMI Chairman Vikas Khemani said.