ithought Solitaire PMS Review: Performance, Fees & Should You Stay Invested?

Quick Summary

What Works

What Doesn’t

Strong, verified alpha over the benchmark across the 3-year and 5-year trailing periods, net of fees. A low 1.50% fixed fee — among the most investor-friendly fee structures in the PMS space. Low beta (0.76) with 75%+ holdings in debt-free companies; a genuinely defensive quality tilt. Fund manager with over 3 decades of investing experience, continuously running this strategy since inception.

Negative alpha over both 1 year (-3.75%) and 2 years (-1.40%) — the fund has underperformed its own benchmark in recent periods, net of fees. Holdings and sectors are UNDISCLOSED on standard public databases, making portfolio overlap assessment with your mutual funds structurally impossible. CY26 YTD: -3.63%. CY25 was a near-flat 0.81%. Two consecutive weak years after strong long-term compounding. No profit-sharing or hurdle option — the fee structure doesn’t reflect near-term underperformance in any way.

The verdict: Solitaire’s long-term track record is real, and the fee structure is genuinely fairer than most peers.

But you are investing today, not in 2019. The last two years of negative benchmark-relative returns, combined with completely undisclosed holdings that make portfolio overlap impossible to assess, create enough uncertainty that a fresh commitment — or continued holding without a detailed review — deserves more rigour than most investors are applying.

The PMS Value Framework

Every PMS we review is measured against the same lens before analysis begins:

Gross Alpha > Fee	Value Added
Gross Alpha ≈ Fee	Break-Even
Gross Alpha < Fee	Value Destroyed

Where does Solitaire sit?

The answer is genuinely split by period. Over 3 and 5 years, it sits firmly in the Value Added zone — net returns have clearly exceeded the benchmark.

Over the last 1 and 2 years, the situation reverses: the fund has delivered negative net alpha against the benchmark, meaning it has not only failed to earn its fee in relative terms — it has underperformed the index that requires no active management at all.

That is the single most important data point in this review.

Table of Contents

1. Who Should Read This

2. Who This PMS May Still Suit

3. Who Should Likely Avoid This PMS

4. What Is ithought Solitaire PMS?

5. Performance Review

6. The Fee Reality

7. The Zero-Based Thinking Test

8. Decision Factor Scorecard

9. Summary Scorecard

10. The Core Portfolio Architecture Question

11. What a Genuinely Complementary PMS Looks Like

12. Exit Considerations

13. Key Takeaways

14. Frequently Asked Questions

15. Our Approach

1. Who Should Read This

• You currently hold ithought Solitaire PMS and want to understand whether the recent 1-year and 2-year underperformance is a temporary style headwind or a structural concern.
• You are evaluating a Solitaire PMS recommendation and want to understand what the actual net returns look like across all periods — not just the impressive 5-year number.
• You want to know whether your existing mutual fund portfolio already captures what Solitaire does — before paying a management fee for it.
• You are comparing the ithought Solitaire fee structure against what is typical in the PMS industry and want a clear, honest read.
• You are deciding whether to continue, add to, or exit an existing Solitaire allocation and want the data laid out plainly, without a sales agenda.

2. Who This PMS May Still Suit

• Long-horizon investors (5 years or more) who specifically want a quality-focused, low-churn flexi-cap strategy with a lower fee than most PMS peers — the long-term track record supports this thesis.
• Investors who genuinely value capital preservation in falling markets: Solitaire’s low beta (0.76) and >75% debt-free holding profile suggest meaningful downside discipline in adverse conditions.
• Investors with a strong, large-cap-heavy mutual fund portfolio who are looking for a complementary active quality-tilt approach — provided they can independently verify the actual holdings don’t overlap with their existing book.
• Investors who already hold Solitaire and are anchored in a cost basis well before 2022, where the strategy has compounded meaningfully and the long-term thesis is still intact.

3. Who Should Likely Avoid This PMS

• Investors with a sub-3-year horizon, given recent 1-year (-3.68%) and 2-year (+2.74%) returns that trail the benchmark, plus a 3% exit load in year 1.
• Investors who are unable to assess portfolio overlap because holdings are undisclosed — you cannot make an informed decision about duplication or complementarity without knowing what you’re actually buying.
• Investors expecting momentum or growth exposure — Solitaire’s low-beta, quality-value approach will structurally lag in aggressive market rallies, and recent evidence (CY25: 0.81%, CY26 YTD: -3.63%) confirms this.
• Investors who need transparency and want to compare their PMS holdings against their mutual fund holdings stock by stock — with Solitaire, that comparison is currently not possible with publicly available data.

4. What Is ithought Solitaire PMS?

Solitaire is ithought Financial Consulting LLP’s flagship flexi-cap Portfolio Management Service, benchmarked to the S&P BSE 500 TRI.

Here is the key disclosed facts:

Category	PMS — Multi Cap & Flexi Cap
Benchmark	S&P BSE 500 TRI
Inception Date	30 August 2019
Portfolio Age	6 years, 9 months
Minimum Investment	₹50,00,000
AUM	₹1,707.70 Crore
Fund Manager	Shyam Sekhar (30+ years; since inception)
Portfolio Beta	0.76 (below-market volatility)
Debt-free Companies	>75% of holdings
Holdings Disclosed?	UNDISCLOSED (names and weightings)

Investment Approach

Solitaire follows a low-churn, high-quality, alpha-oriented approach. The stated intention is to build a portfolio of ‘emerging performers’ selected from themes with higher growth metrics and superior capital allocation.

In the February 2026 factsheet, ithought characterised Solitaire’s sectoral positioning as: FMCG (22%), Financial Services (14%), Capital Goods (12%), and Automobile Ancillaries (12%), with more than 75% of holdings in debt-free companies and a portfolio beta of 0.76.

These characteristics suggest a genuinely quality-defensive style — not a high-conviction momentum fund.

Investment Objective

To invest in well-managed companies with proven business models at reasonable valuations, with the intention of giving investors stable, consistent returns.

The philosophy is classic quality investing: buy good businesses at fair prices and hold with low churn.

Mandate Promise vs. Data Reality

Here is what you need to hold in your head at the same time. The investment mandate — quality, stable, consistent — is credible and consistently evidenced in the factsheet data.

Low beta, debt-free businesses, long-term compounding.

And yet, the last twelve months delivered -3.68% on an absolute basis. CY25 delivered 0.81% — barely above zero for a full calendar year.

In both years, you would have done better sitting in a passive index fund.

That is not a contradiction of the strategy’s long-term thesis; it may simply be a quality/value style going through a difficult rotation cycle.

But it is also the data you deserve to see clearly before deciding what to do with your ₹50 lakhs.

5. Performance Review

When did you last look at your Solitaire statement and check it against the benchmark — not just the absolute number, but the net alpha in each period? Here is what the data actually says.

Trailing Returns vs. Benchmark

All figures as on 31 May 2026, annualised where applicable, calculated on a TWRR basis.

Period	Solitaire PMS	S&P BSE 500 TRI	Alpha (+/–)
1 Year	-3.68%	+0.07%	-3.75%
2 Year	2.74%	4.14%	-1.40%
3 Year	16.71%	13.46%	+3.25%
5 Year	17.77%	12.29%	+5.48%
Since Inception	20.46%	17.02%	+3.44%

Since Inception data from February 2026 factsheet. All other figures as on 31 May 2026.

Read the table from right to left, not left to right. The since-inception and 5-year numbers look impressive on a pitch deck — and they are real.

But the data is telling you something uncomfortable about right now: both the 1-year and 2-year alpha are negative.

The fund did not just fall short of a high benchmark; it underperformed a passive index that asks for no skill and charges 0.07% in fees.

On a ₹50 lakh portfolio, the 1-year underperformance relative to the benchmark amounts to roughly ₹1.87 lakh. That is the data as it stands.

Here is the important context: a low-beta, quality-defensive strategy like Solitaire will structurally underperform in periods of aggressive market momentum.

When the market is chasing cyclicals, small-caps, and high-beta plays, a 0.76 beta quality fund will lag.

That is not a flaw — it is a feature of the strategy you signed up for, and it deserves to be acknowledged rather than used to dismiss the concern entirely.

The question to ask is: has the benchmark itself been rewarding exactly that momentum cycle?

If yes, the underperformance is consistent with the strategy’s design. If the benchmark itself has been broadly flat (as the 1-year BSE 500 TRI of +0.07% suggests), then the explanation becomes thinner.

Calendar Year Performance

CY19	CY20	CY21	CY22	CY23	CY24	CY25 / CY26 YTD
11.32%	9.24%	39.93%	13.20%	~41%*	20.96%	0.81% / -3.63%

*CY23 figure approximate; top of bar partially obscured in source chart.

The calendar-year pattern shows something important that a trailing average obscures.

For four consecutive years — CY19 through CY22 — Solitaire compounded steadily without a negative year. CY23 was an exceptional year. CY24 was strong.

Then came CY25 at 0.81% — the first year the strategy barely moved. Now CY26 is tracking negative.

Two consecutive weak years after a long stretch of strong compounding is not automatically alarming, but it is the period your money is currently sitting in.

The question isn’t whether this strategy worked well from 2019 to 2024. The question is what the next 3–5 years look like from here.

Is This Temporary or Structural?

The honest assessment: the recent underperformance looks more consistent with a cyclical style headwind than a structural breakdown in Solitaire’s process.

Quality-defensive strategies that focus on debt-free, well-managed businesses at reasonable valuations genuinely do underperform in periods when the market favours higher-beta, more speculative bets.

The strategy’s low beta (0.76) is not a bug — it is a deliberate design feature, and it costs you returns during aggressive rally phases.

What is less easy to explain away is the 2-year underperformance: over that period, even the benchmark returned only 4.14%, and Solitaire delivered 2.74%.

This is not a case of a high-beta market leaving a defensive fund behind.

This is a broadly muted market environment in which the strategy still lagged.

That pattern — quiet market, meaningful underperformance — deserves more scrutiny than a simple ‘style headwind’ explanation provides.

6. The Fee Reality

If the index fund is doing more with less right now, what exactly are you paying 1.5% for?

Let’s look at the honest number, including what Solitaire’s low fee structure does and doesn’t change.

Fee Structure

Fixed Fee (AMC)	1.50% per annum
Variable / Profit Share	No option offered
Hurdle Rate	No option offered
Exit Load — Year 1	3.00%
Exit Load — Year 2	2.00%
SIP / STP	Both Available

Acknowledge this plainly: 1.50% is genuinely low for a PMS. Most multi-cap PMS products charge 2.0–2.5% fixed fees.

Solitaire’s fee represents real savings — over ₹47,000 per year on a ₹50 lakh portfolio compared to a 2.5% peer.

That difference compounds meaningfully over time. It is a structural advantage of this particular product that its critics often overlook.

But a lower fee does not eliminate the fee problem. When the strategy delivers negative net alpha — as it has in both the 1-year and 2-year trailing periods — even 1.5% is 1.5% more than you’re paying for outperformance that isn’t materialising.

A flat fee has no mechanism to adjust to underperformance.

You pay 1.5% in a year where Solitaire returns 40%, and you pay the same 1.5% in a year it returns -3.68%.

Fee Drag on ₹50 Lakhs: The Rupee Picture

Using the 5-year trailing return as the base case, here is what a ₹50 lakh investment grows to net of fees versus a passive index fund at 0.15%:

Scenario	Net Return (5Y CAGR)	Corpus After 5 Years	Corpus After 7 Years
Solitaire PMS (Net of 1.50% fee)	17.77%	₹1,13,27,743	₹1,57,11,322
Passive Index Fund (Net of 0.15% fee)	12.14%	₹88,66,919	₹1,11,50,488

Index fund scenario uses the S&P BSE 500 TRI’s own disclosed 5-year return less a 0.15% passive fund fee. Both are illustrative projections at disclosed trailing CAGRs — not guarantees of future performance.

At the 5-year trailing rate, Solitaire’s rupee outcome is meaningfully ahead of the passive alternative — by roughly ₹24.6 lakh over 5 years and ₹45.6 lakh over 7 years on a ₹50 lakh base.

That is real money, and a genuinely honest review acknowledges it.

But that number reflects what happened over the past 5 years. It says nothing about the next 5.

And the next-5-year starting point includes a 1-year return of -3.68% and a 2-year CAGR of 2.74% that you are already inside.

7. The Zero-Based Thinking Test

Knowing everything you know today — the 1-year loss, the 2-year underperformance, the undisclosed holdings, and the flat CY25 — if this ₹50 lakh were sitting in your bank account right now and you were seeing the Solitaire pitch for the first time, would you invest it here?

That question does something important. It strips away sunk cost, the discomfort of admitting a decision needs revisiting, and the inertia of simply continuing what you started.

It asks you to evaluate the next chapter — not to judge the last one. For some investors, the answer is still yes.

The low fee, the quality thesis, the long-term track record, and Shyam Sekhar’s unbroken tenure since inception are all genuine reasons to maintain conviction.

For others — particularly those who can’t verify what they actually own through Solitaire because the holdings are not publicly disclosed — the answer should be: not without doing more homework first.

You cannot make an informed decision about portfolio overlap, genuine complementarity, or the strategy’s current positioning if you don’t know what’s in the portfolio.

That is not a minor inconvenience. That is a structural gap in the information you need to make a considered choice.

Staying invested out of habit is not the same as staying invested with conviction. One of those is a decision. The other is a default.

Only one of them deserves to be called a portfolio strategy.

8. Decision Factor Scorecard

All 12 factors, scored on the data available.

Where evidence is genuinely positive, the rating reflects it.

Decision Factor	Rating	Analysis
Uniqueness vs. existing MF portfolio	🔴	This is the most structurally problematic factor in Solitaire’s case. Holdings are not publicly disclosed. Top 5 holdings, top 5 sectors, individual stock names — all marked ‘Undisclosed’ in the standard database aggregators. The February 2026 factsheet gives sector-level colour (FMCG 22%, Financial Services 14%, Capital Goods 12%, Auto Ancillaries 12%) — but without stock names, you cannot meaningfully determine whether your existing flexi-cap or multi-cap mutual funds already own the same companies. Verdict: the claim of uniqueness may be valid, but you have no way to verify it with publicly available data. An investment decision made without knowing what you own is not informed decision-making.
Alpha consistency across all periods	🔴	Alpha across 3-year (+3.25%) and 5-year (+5.48%) periods is genuinely strong. This is not contested. The long-term picture is creditable. But alpha is negative over both 1-year (-3.75%) and 2-year (-1.40%) periods. This is not a rounding error or a close call — it is a verified, documented failure to keep pace with the benchmark in the most recent windows. Consistency requires the alpha to show up across periods; it currently does not. Verdict: long-term track record is real; recent track record is a concern. The alpha is not consistent — it is concentrated in 2021–2023 and has not materialised in the past two years.
Justification for PMS premium fee	🟡	Over 3 and 5 years, the net return clearly justifies the 1.50% fee. The alpha is wide enough that the fee is earned with room to spare. Over the last 1 and 2 years, the fee cannot be justified by the output. When you are receiving negative benchmark-relative returns, even 1.5% is a fee for underperformance. That is the honest version of the current fee story. Verdict: Mixed — justified on the long-term view, genuinely unjustified on current performance. The low fee structure mitigates damage but does not eliminate the problem.
Downside protection in market corrections	🟢	This is a genuine strength. A beta of 0.76 and >75% debt-free companies signal a portfolio built with downside discipline. Low-churn, quality-focused investing tends to hold up better in sharp corrections than high-beta or momentum-heavy strategies. The CY22 calendar year return of 13.20% in a broadly negative year for Indian equities is the most concrete evidence for this quality: the strategy preserved and grew capital when many peers declined. Verdict: Pass. Downside protection is a real, data-evidenced strength of this strategy.
Portfolio complement for MF investor	🔴	The strategy’s quality-FMCG-focused positioning overlaps meaningfully with most mainstream Indian diversified equity mutual funds, which also tend to own FMCG leaders, private banks, and quality consumer businesses. The stated sector allocation (FMCG 22%, Financial Services 14%) aligns closely with what most large-cap and flexi-cap funds already hold. Without stock-level disclosure, it is impossible to confirm or deny the overlap with your specific holdings. The problem is precisely that: the absence of disclosure means you cannot assess complementarity, only guess at it. Verdict: Concern — not because overlap is confirmed, but because it cannot be ruled out with any rigour. This matters enormously for a satellite portfolio allocation.
Mandate purity and discipline	🟢	The factsheet data is consistent with the stated investment philosophy across multiple periods. Low beta, high quality, debt-free tilt — these are not marketing claims; they appear consistently in every disclosed data point. The low-churn approach is evidenced in the strategy’s historically low portfolio turnover philosophy, and the patient, long-horizon framing is consistent across ithought’s public communications. The fund manager has not drifted toward momentum or changed style under market pressure. Verdict: Pass. Mandate discipline is a genuine positive.
Fund manager transparency	🟡	Shyam Sekhar’s philosophy, background, and track record are well-documented. ithought publishes monthly factsheets with commentary and a regular blog. The fund manager’s voice and thinking are accessible and consistent. However, the non-disclosure of top holdings and sector weightings in the standard public databases is a material transparency gap. A fund manager who communicates his philosophy clearly but does not disclose his portfolio is only half-transparent. Verdict: Mixed. Personal communication and philosophy are transparent; portfolio transparency is genuinely limited.
Investment horizon suitability	🟡	The strategy is designed explicitly for long-horizon investors. The track record supports this: meaningful compounding over 5+ years, but with years like CY25 (0.81%) and stretches where the strategy lags. If you are within 3 years of needing this capital, the current momentum headwind plus a 3% year-1 exit load makes this a poor fit regardless of the long-term numbers. Verdict: Mixed — genuinely suitable for patient, long-horizon investors; a concern for anyone with shorter timelines or lower tolerance for back-to-back weak years.
Market cap flexibility utilisation	🟡	Solitaire’s mandate covers multi-cap and flexi-cap exposure, but with composition not disclosed on standard databases, it is difficult to verify how actively this flexibility is being used across large, mid, and small cap segments. The factsheet’s characterisation of the portfolio as focused on ’emerging performers’ from ‘themes with higher growth metrics’ suggests the portfolio isn’t just a large-cap quality fund in disguise, but without full holdings disclosure this remains a partially verified claim. Verdict: Mixed — the mandate allows flexibility; whether it’s being used actively cannot be fully verified from available data.
Concentration vs. diversification balance	🟡	With holdings undisclosed, the precise number of stocks and their individual weights are unknown. The factsheet suggests a quality-concentrated approach with specific sector tilts rather than pure broad diversification. What is known is that the top 5 sectors % is also undisclosed on the main aggregator database. The Feb factsheet gives four sector buckets accounting for roughly 60% of the portfolio — suggesting moderate sector concentration rather than extreme concentration. Verdict: Mixed — insufficient disclosure to make a precise assessment. That itself is a concern for someone trying to evaluate risk.
AUM size and strategy capacity	🟢	At ₹1,707.70 crores, the AUM is in a healthy range for a multi-cap quality strategy. It is substantial enough to reflect genuine investor confidence and operational maturity, but not so large that it would create meaningful execution constraints for a flexi-cap mandate that can operate across market cap segments. Verdict: Pass. AUM size is appropriate and not a structural concern.
Manager tenure and continuity risk	🟢	This is one of Solitaire’s most genuine strengths. Shyam Sekhar has been running the strategy since inception in August 2019 — nearly 7 years of unbroken manager continuity. The full track record belongs to the same investment mind. Over 3 decades of investing experience, a clear philosophy, and an unbroken since-inception record are meaningful assurances. The risk of having a marketed track record that belongs partly to a predecessor does not apply here. Verdict: Pass. Manager continuity is a genuine, verified strength.
Strategy-specific: Holdings disclosure gap	🔴	This factor is specific to Solitaire and is not a standard scorecard item, but it warrants dedicated attention. The non-disclosure of portfolio holdings on standard databases means an investor cannot conduct basic due diligence: What do I own? Does it overlap with my mutual funds? Is the sector tilt I see in the factsheet consistent with what I think I’m getting? Holdings are disclosed directly by ithought to their portfolio clients through the demat account and periodic reporting — but for evaluative purposes (deciding whether to invest or continue holding), public non-disclosure is a structural gap that affects every other factor in this scorecard. Verdict: Concern — this is not a minor omission. It materially limits your ability to conduct informed oversight of your own allocation.

9. Summary Scorecard

Decision Factor	Rating
Uniqueness vs. existing MF portfolio	🔴 Concern
Alpha consistency across all periods	🔴 Concern
Justification for PMS premium fee	🟡 Mixed
Downside protection in market corrections	🟢 Pass
Portfolio complement for MF investor	🔴 Concern
Mandate purity and discipline	🟢 Pass
Fund manager transparency	🟡 Mixed
Investment horizon suitability	🟡 Mixed
Market cap flexibility utilisation	🟡 Mixed
Concentration vs. diversification balance	🟡 Mixed
AUM size and strategy capacity	🟢 Pass
Manager tenure and continuity risk	🟢 Pass
Strategy-specific: Holdings disclosure gap	🔴 Concern

10. The Core Portfolio Architecture Question

Here is the lens worth applying to your entire equity allocation — not just Solitaire in isolation.

A useful portfolio architecture splits the equity sleeve into two distinct jobs.

The core is built with low-cost, broadly diversified vehicles — index funds, flexi-cap funds, multi-asset funds — whose job is to capture market returns efficiently and cheaply.

The satellite is where you allocate selectively to PMS or AIF strategies that genuinely complement the core, accessing something the core structurally cannot: a true small-cap turnaround book, a long-short strategy, or a specific thematic concentration your index funds will never take.

The satellite test for Solitaire is harder to pass than it looks.

Its sector composition (FMCG, Financial Services, Capital Goods, Auto Ancillaries) maps closely to the kinds of quality businesses that most mainstream flexi-cap mutual funds already own.

Without stock-level disclosure, you genuinely cannot determine whether you’re adding a distinct return stream or paying a management fee to own the same businesses through a different vehicle.

This is not a case against quality investing. It is a case for informed allocation — knowing what you own, before you decide whether it belongs in your portfolio.

11. What a Genuinely Complementary PMS Looks Like

The checklist you should run every satellite PMS holding through — including this one:

• It holds stocks and sectors that your existing mutual funds structurally cannot or do not reach — and this can be verified, not guessed at.
• Its net-of-fee alpha is positive and consistent across short, medium and long trailing periods — not concentrated in one or two standout years.
• Its sector positioning is disclosed at a granular enough level that portfolio overlap assessment is possible before committing capital.
• Its fee structure has some link to performance outcomes — a hurdle rate or profit share — so the fund manager’s economics align at least partially with your outcomes.
• Its current fund manager has been running the specific strategy long enough that the full disclosed track record belongs unambiguously to the same decision-maker.

12. Exit Considerations

Exit Load Schedule

• Year 1: 3.00% of redemption value
• Year 2: 2.00% of redemption value

Tax Treatment

Unlike a mutual fund, Solitaire holds securities directly in your own demat account. Every time the fund manager sells a holding, it is a taxable event for you — at the individual stock level. Long-term capital gains (on holdings over 12 months) and short-term capital gains (under 12 months) are triggered separately by each stock sale, at the applicable rates in force at the time.

This is structurally different from a mutual fund, where you pay tax only when you redeem your own units, regardless of how much the fund manager trades within the scheme.

Staggered Exit

If your zero-based thinking exercise concludes that an exit is right, consider doing it in tranches over two to three quarters.

This distributes the stock-level capital gains events across financial years, allows you to manage the tax impact, and avoids crystallising the entire position at a single market level.

A staggered exit is more tax-efficient and reduces price-impact risk on any concentrated positions.

Timing Note

If you’re within the first two years of your investment, check your exact entry date against the exit load schedule before making any move — a 3% load is a real, immediate cost that should be factored against the expected cost of continued holding.

There is no perfect time to exit an equity strategy, but there is almost always a more informed way to do it than reacting to a single negative year.

13. Key Takeaways

1. ithought Solitaire PMS has delivered genuine, positive alpha over both the 3-year (+3.25%) and 5-year (+5.48%) trailing periods — net of fees. The long-term track record is real and earned under continuous management by Shyam Sekhar since inception.
2. Over the most recent 1-year and 2-year periods, the strategy has delivered negative alpha (-3.75% and -1.40% respectively), underperforming the S&P BSE 500 TRI. This is not a rounding-error gap — it is verified underperformance during the period your money is currently working.
3. The 1.50% fixed fee is among the lowest in the PMS industry and represents a genuine structural advantage over higher-fee peers. On a ₹50 lakh portfolio, this saves you over ₹47,000 per year compared to a 2.5% fee product.
4. Portfolio holdings are NOT disclosed in publicly available databases. This makes it structurally impossible to assess overlap with your existing mutual fund portfolio, which is a material information gap for any informed allocation decision.
5. The low-beta (0.76), debt-free-focused, quality style will structurally underperform in momentum-driven market phases. CY25 (0.81%) and CY26 YTD (-3.63%) are consistent with this — but also coincide with a broadly quiet benchmark, which limits the ‘style headwind’ explanation.
6. Manager tenure and continuity is a genuine positive: the full since-inception track record belongs to one fund manager, with no predecessor-return inherited into the headline number.
7. At ₹50 lakhs over 5 years at the disclosed CAGR, Solitaire’s corpus (₹1.13 crore) still outpaces a passive index alternative (₹88.7 lakh) — but this reflects past performance and provides no assurance about the trajectory from here.
8. The first question to ask before your next decision about Solitaire is not ‘should I exit?’ It is: ‘Do I actually know what I own, and does it genuinely complement my mutual fund portfolio, or duplicate it?’ Without that answer, no decision is truly informed.

14. Frequently Asked Questions

i. Is ithought Solitaire PMS good or bad?

It depends heavily on the time period you’re looking at. Over 3 years and 5 years, it has genuinely outperformed its benchmark net of fees, with a notably low fee structure. Over the last 1 and 2 years, it has underperformed the same benchmark. Both things are true simultaneously, and how you weight them depends on your investment horizon and current portfolio composition.

ii. What is ithought Solitaire PMS’s minimum investment?

The minimum investment is ₹50,00,000 (50 lakh), as required by SEBI for all Portfolio Management Services in India.

iii. What is the ithought Solitaire PMS AUM?

As on 31 May 2026, the AUM was ₹1,707.70 crores.

iv. What are the ithought Solitaire PMS fees?

1.50% per annum fixed fee with no variable or profit-sharing option. Exit load: 3.00% in Year 1 and 2.00% in Year 2. The 1.50% rate is significantly below the PMS industry average of 2.0–2.5%.

v. How has ithought Solitaire PMS performed?

As on 31 May 2026: 1-year -3.68% (benchmark +0.07%); 2-year 2.74% (benchmark 4.14%); 3-year 16.71% (benchmark 13.46%); 5-year 17.77% (benchmark 12.29%). Since inception (August 2019): 20.46% versus benchmark 17.02%.

vi. Why are ithought Solitaire holdings not disclosed?

ithought Financial Consulting LLP does not publish individual stock names and weightings on standard public aggregator databases. Portfolio holdings are disclosed directly to portfolio clients through their demat accounts and periodic reporting. For evaluation purposes, this means publicly available analysis is limited to sector-level data from the firm’s own monthly factsheets.

vii. Is ithought PMS better than a mutual fund?

Not categorically. Over the long term (3-5 years), Solitaire has outpaced the S&P BSE 500 TRI benchmark that most passive large-cap funds track. Over the short term (1-2 years), it has underperformed. The lower fee relative to PMS peers is a genuine advantage, but at ₹50 lakh minimum, a PMS should add something a mutual fund structurally cannot — and without holdings disclosure, that case is difficult to verify.

viii. Is PMS worth it vs mutual funds in India?

Only if three conditions are met: the net-of-fee return consistently exceeds what a comparable mutual fund or index fund delivers; the portfolio genuinely holds something your mutual funds cannot reach; and you have a long enough horizon to weather style-cycle underperformance without panicking. Solitaire meets the third condition in its track record. The second cannot currently be assessed due to holdings non-disclosure.

ix. What is the ithought PMS investment strategy?

Solitaire follows a low-churn, quality-focused approach targeting businesses with proven models, superior capital allocation, and reasonable valuations. More than 75% of holdings are in debt-free companies. The portfolio has a below-market beta of 0.76, emphasising capital preservation alongside compounding. Sector tilts include FMCG (22%), Financial Services (14%), Capital Goods (12%), and Automobile Ancillaries (12%) as of February 2026.

x. How do I exit ithought Solitaire PMS?

You instruct ithought Financial Consulting LLP to liquidate your holdings. Because securities are held directly in your Demat account, each stock sold triggers its own capital gains event (LTCG or STCG depending on the holding period). A staggered exit across two to three quarters is generally more tax-efficient than a single-lump redemption. Check your exact entry date against the exit load schedule before initiating.

15. Our Approach

We don’t currently recommend ithought Solitaire PMS to our clients — not because the long-term numbers are weak, but because the recent underperformance, the undisclosed holdings, and the inability to conduct a proper portfolio overlap assessment make it difficult for us to endorse a fresh commitment or continued holding without more rigour than the available public data allows.

If you’re an existing Solitaire investor and want to understand whether this PMS genuinely complements your mutual fund portfolio, or whether there’s meaningful overlap that makes the fee hard to justify, we’re happy to work through that with you as part of a broader portfolio review — looking at where your core and satellite allocations actually stand, and whether each allocation is earning its place.