The glossy presentation is done. The returns look strong. The relationship manager is warm.
This is precisely the moment to slow down.
A Portfolio Management Services commitment is ₹50 lakhs or more, a Power of Attorney, and a multi-year horizon. Before any of it, five questions — asked directly, answered specifically - will tell you more than any pitch deck.
1. "Who has actually managed this strategy, and for how long?"
Track records belong to people, not brands. A strategy's 5-year Alpha means little if the manager who generated it left last year.
Ask for the current manager's tenure on this specific strategy. Ask whether the founder or named manager still drives decisions day-to-day, or has moved to oversight while a newer team executes. Continuity of the decision-maker is the single most under-examined variable in PMS selection.
2. "Has this strategy changed its stripes?"
A strategy whose portfolio was large-cap-heavy in 2019, drifted mid-cap by 2021, and now markets itself as flexi-cap has a philosophy problem - its historical record describes three different portfolios.
Two routes make this possible. A provider can formally amend the investment approach with disclosure to clients - permitted under PMS regulations, and notably without the mandatory exit window that protects mutual fund investors during fundamental attribute changes. Or, more commonly, a broadly-worded mandate - "flexi cap", "opportunities" - allows the actual portfolio character to drift without changing a single word of the documented strategy.
Ask how the mandate has evolved since inception, and how the portfolio's actual market-cap mix has moved over the years. Style discipline through unfavourable phases is what separates conviction from marketing. The record is only meaningful if the approach that produced it still exists.
3. "Walk me through the complete fee math at my corpus."
Not the headline rate - the complete math. Fixed fee. Variable fee percentage. The hurdle rate above which it applies. Whether a high watermark protects against paying twice for the same gains. Exit load, and its schedule.
Then ask for the arithmetic on your actual amount: "On ₹50 lakhs, if the portfolio returns 15%, what do I pay in total?" A provider who answers in exact rupees understands their own product. Hesitation is information.
4. "How much does this portfolio overlap with what I already hold?"
If you hold direct equity, this question protects you from invisible concentration. A strategy holding six of your existing stocks doesn't diversify your wealth - it doubles down on it, without you choosing to.
Share your current holdings and ask for an overlap assessment against the strategy's portfolio. A capable provider treats this as a natural diligence step. This is also the moment to register your negative list - the stocks and sectors the manager may never buy for you.
5. "What are my exit terms - completely?"
Entry gets the attention; exit deserves it. Ask: the exit load structure and when it lapses, the notice period and settlement timeline, whether holdings transfer to you in-specie (as shares, into your control) or must be liquidated — and the tax consequences of each route.
Exit terms are where structure quietly meets reality. Read them before signing, not before leaving.
The honest caveat
Good answers to all five questions still describe the past and the contract not the future. What these questions genuinely test is transparency: a provider who answers all five specifically, in writing where it matters, is telling you how the relationship will run. Evasion on any one is a finding in itself.
The takeaway
Five questions. Thirty minutes. ₹50 lakhs protected by the discipline of asking. The strategies on our dashboard cleared a data-driven filter - these questions are how you clear yours.
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