PMS managers eye trust structures

Move aimed at bypassing Sebi's Rs 25-lakh minimum investment size for PMS

Anand Rathi-Knight Frank India Fund and portfolio management services (PMS) arms of HDFC Asset Management Company, ICICI Prudential AMC and others are looking at launching trust structures to float their next funds in the real estate sector.

The portfolio services of these asset management firms have cut a number of deals in the Indian real estate segment in the last two years, emerging as a major source of funding for property developers.

However, Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi) February 2012 regulations on portfolio managers, which disallowed pooling of accounts and raised the minimum investment size to Rs 25 lakh, is prompting PMS managers to look at trust structures, where pooling of accounts is allowed and managers can mop up lower ticket investments.

Anand Rathi-Knight Frank, which raised its first fund on a PMS platform earlier, is looking at raising a Rs 500 crore through the trust route in the first quarter of the next financial year.

“The most challenging part in the Sebi regulations is that you have to segregate the accounts under PMS. Each investor has to be issued separate share certificates and debentures. It becomes a public limited company then,” said Amit Goenka, national director, capital transactions, at Knight Frank India.

“We are looking at a trust structure because pooling of accounts is allowed, and we can raise lower ticket investments. Besides, they enjoy pass through status as per the recent Budget proposals,” Goenka added.

In the trust structure, a fund manager (sponsor) sets up a trust and appoints trustees after securing approval from Sebi. Investors or unit holders will appoint the sponsor as fund manager to the fund. Investors will put money in the trust, which in turn becomes a client of the fund manager for a particular strategy. The entry and exit of the investors takes place through the trust.

Even others are enthused with the idea to setting up a trust.

“We are looking at it (trust structure), but we have not finalised anything so far,” said Milind Barve, managing director and chief executive, HDFC Asset Management Company.

A mail sent to ICICI Prudential PMS did not elicit any response.

“There is a challenge before PMS managers now, and business would be affected. That is why most of us are looking at different structures,” said the real estate head of a Mumbai-based leading asset management company.

Many fund managers would also look at the final Alternative Investment Funds regulations to be notified by Sebi before finalising their strategies, he said.