Ashoka India Equity Investment Trust

Launched in 2018, the Ashoka India Equity (AIE) trust aims to achieve long-term capital growth by investing in Indian companies of all sizes. The trust adopts a bottom-up stock picking approach to target scalable businesses with sustainable superior returns on capital.

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Our Opinion
Fund Manager
Investment Board
Key Facts
Fund Performance
Risk
Company Description
Investment process
ESG
Gearing
Discount/Premium

Our Opinion

Aided by a huge bank of experienced research analysts, covering companies of all sizes, this trust has comfortably been the best performer in its sector since inception. We like the trust’s unique approach to stock selection and their ability to go deeper into both the mid and small-cap markets. A highly unconstrained vehicle, we also like its approach to ESG, specifically governance, which can be a critical issue in India. The trust also adopts a unique fee structure which we believe aligns the management team’s interests with investors through a performance fee linked to alpha generation.

Fund Manager

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Fund Manager

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Prashant Khemka, Lead Manager Prior to White Oak, Prashant served as the chief investment officer and the lead portfolio manager for the Goldman Sachs India Strategy from March 2007, and Global Emerging Markets Equity Strategy from June 2013. He initially joined GSAM in 2000 as part of the US Growth Equity team. Prashant graduated with honours from Mumbai University with a BE in Mechanical Engineering and earned an MBA in Finance from Vanderbilt University, where he received the Matt Wigginton Leadership Award for outstanding performance in Finance. He was awarded the CFA designation in 2001 and is a fellow of the Ananta Aspen Centre, India. Prashant is part of a 13-strong research team, all of whom focus on various sectors across the Indian market.

Prashant Khemka, Lead Manager Prior to White Oak, Prashant served as the chief investment officer and the lead portfolio manager for the Goldman Sachs India Strategy from March 2007, and Global Emerging Markets Equity Strategy from June 2013. He initially joined GSAM in 2000 as part of the US Growth Equity team. Prashant graduated with honours from Mumbai University with a BE in Mechanical Engineering and earned an MBA in Finance from Vanderbilt University, where he received the Matt Wigginton Leadership Award for outstanding performance in Finance. He was awarded the CFA designation in 2001 and is a fellow of the Ananta Aspen Centre, India. Prashant is part of a 13-strong research team, all of whom focus on various sectors across the Indian market.

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Investment Board

The four-strong board is chaired by Andrew Watkins. He has over 30 years’ experience in the investment companies sector in senior sales and client relations positions with Robert Fleming, Jupiter and Invesco Perpetual, retiring from full-time employment in June 2017. He is a current non-executive director of BMO UK High Income Trust plc, Chelverton UK Dividend Trust plc, Baillie Gifford European Growth Trust plc and Consistent Unit Trust Management Company Limited.

He is joined on the trust by fellow board members Dr. Jerome Booth, Jamie Skinner and Rita Dhut.

Key Facts

Asset type Equity

Annual Income (Historic) -

Sector India/Indian Subcontinent

Gearing-

Fund Size-

Ongoing Charges Figure (OCF) -

Share price discount or premium -

Fund Performance

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Risk

Investing in a single country portfolio always carries high risk, which can be accentuated in this trust as it has a reasonable allocation to mid and small-sized companies, which are traditionally more volatile than larger companies. Performance is heavily tied to individual stock selection, however the team acknowledge the trust will lag when poor governance segments of the market in aggregate outperform; sectors such as commodities, energy, utilities, and tobacco outperform the market; government-owned companies outperform the market; and when small and mid-caps underperform the market.

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Risk: 10

Company Description

AIE is managed by White Oak Capital Asset Management, part of the wider White Oak Capital Group. The firm was founded by Prashant Khemka - who also manages the trust - and has investment research teams based in India, Singapore, Spain and additional sales and distribution offices in Switzerland, UAE and the UK.

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Fund Performance

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Risk

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Investing in a single country portfolio always carries high risk, which can be accentuated in this trust as it has a reasonable allocation to mid and small-sized companies, which are traditionally more volatile than larger companies. Performance is heavily tied to individual stock selection, however the team acknowledge the trust will lag when poor governance segments of the market in aggregate outperform; sectors such as commodities, energy, utilities, and tobacco outperform the market; government-owned companies outperform the market; and when small and mid-caps underperform the market.

Company Description

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AIE is managed by White Oak Capital Asset Management, part of the wider White Oak Capital Group. The firm was founded by Prashant Khemka - who also manages the trust - and has investment research teams based in India, Singapore, Spain and additional sales and distribution offices in Switzerland, UAE and the UK.

Investment process

The investment process on this multi-cap vehicle is centred around bottom-up stock selection, allowing the huge in-house research team at White Oak to scour the entire investment universe of some 750 companies to find well managed and scalable businesses with superior returns on capital and good governance, at a price that is at a discount to what the team see as its intrinsic value.

The initial universe of 750 companies is screened for factors like poor governance and other weak characteristics; as well as targeting firms which are alert to structural changes which can benefit their business. This brings the potential number of companies down to around 200 which the team then analyse in-depth. The team then target businesses they believe are attractively valued when building a final portfolio of 50-100 names.

Despite having a bottom-up focus, structural biases do come out of the process. For example, the team is unlikely to have large weightings in sectors like commodities, utilities, real estate and tobacco. This is because they are poorly governed, while being invested in heavily regulated state-owned enterprises can often limit growth.

The trust also invests into the mid and small-cap space, giving it exposure to a number of domestically-focused businesses.

The trust has a unique charging structure which is designed to increase the alignment of interest between investors and shareholders. The trust has no base management fee – meaning the team are only paid if the trust outperforms. The performance fee stands at 30% of the excess returns of the NAV per ordinary share and the MSCI India IMI benchmark (capped at 12% of NAV). The fee is also paid in shares to the team to ensure increased alignment of interests.

Risk

Investing in a single country portfolio always carries high risk, which can be accentuated in this trust as it has a reasonable allocation to mid and small-sized companies, which are traditionally more volatile than larger companies. Performance is heavily tied to individual stock selection, however the team acknowledge the trust will lag when poor governance segments of the market in aggregate outperform; sectors such as commodities, energy, utilities, and tobacco outperform the market; government-owned companies outperform the market; and when small and mid-caps underperform the market.

ESG

ESG - Integrated  
The company’s ESG framework is designed to evaluate ESG issues through three fundamental facets: policy, risk management and strategy. Investee and potential investee companies are evaluated on their commitment to manage ESG issues effectively as well as integrating ESG into their risk management process and on their approach to making ESG a strategic priority. For a business to be sustainable, the team believe its practices – including environmental, social and governance – must be sustainable for decades to come. Strong governance, a major issue for Indian companies, is a pre-requisite to cash flow assessment and shareholder value creation – companies can be screened out early in the process if they fail on this metric.

Gearing

The trust may deploy up to 20% gearing of net asset value at the time of drawdown to seek to enhance long-term capital growth and for the purposes of capital flexibility and efficient portfolio management.

Discount/Premium

The trust has typically traded at a slight premium for the past five years (it currently stands at 2.1 % at 1 January 2025). It has traded at a discount for short periods in this timeframe, most notably during the Covid pandemic when it fell to a near 20% discount for a brief period.

Related Insights

The information, data, analyses, and opinions contained herein (1) include the proprietary information of FundCalibre, (2) may not be copied or redistributed without prior permission, (3) do not constitute investment advice offered by FundCalibre, (4) are provided solely for informational purposes and therefore are not an offer to buy or sell a fund, and (5) are not warranted to be correct, complete, or accurate. FundCalibre shall not be responsible for any trading decisions, damages, or other losses resulting from, or related to, this information, data, analyses, or opinions or their use. The Elite Fund rating is subjective in nature and reflects FundCalibre’s current expectations of future events/behaviour as they relate to a particular fund. Because such events/behaviour may turn out to be different than expected, FundCalibre does not guarantee that a fund will perform in line with its FundCalibre benchmark. Likewise, the Elite Fund rating should not be seen as any sort of guarantee or assessment of the creditworthiness of a fund nor of its underlying securities and should not be used as the sole basis for making any investment decision. FundCalibre disclaims any responsibility for trading decisions, damages or other losses resulting from any use of the Elite Fund rating. All performance data, as well as fund size, OCF, AMC, annual income (historic), share price discount or premium, is sourced directly from FE Analytics, and will change periodically.