ICICI Prudential Value Strategy: Buying Good Businesses at a Discount Since 2004
Last updated: 12 October 2026
Quick answer: ICICI Prudential Value Strategy is a sector- and market-cap-agnostic PMS that has bought undervalued, good-quality businesses since January 28, 2004. As of July 31, 2026, it held 35 stocks at a portfolio price-to-book of 2.58x and had returned 20.05% a year over five years, against 12.35% for the BSE 500 TRI.
Last updated: 12 October 2026 Quick answer: ICICI Prudential Value Strategy is a sector- and market-cap-agnostic PMS that has bought undervalued, good-quality businesses since January 28, 2004. As of July 31, 2026, it held 35 stocks at a portfolio price-to-book of 2.58x and had returned 20.05% a year over five years, against 12.35% for the BSE 500 TRI. Key takeaways Valuation anchor: portfolio P/B of 2.58x and P/E of 23.32x as of July 31, 2026, the lowest P/B among the style-based strategies. Returns (TWRR): 10.63% (1 year), 18.17% (3 years), 24.79% (4 years) and 20.05% (5 years), against 2.98%, 11.89%, 13.25% and 12.35% for the BSE 500 TRI. Since 2004: 12.97% a year against 12.36% for the benchmark. Small-cap tilt: 37.13% small-cap alongside 50.57% large-cap. Cyclical sector mix: Ferrous Metals 15.98%, Banks 15.57% and Auto Components 11.81%. "Good business at a reasonable price, not a mediocre business at a bargain price." That single line, drawn from ICICI Prudential's own definition of value investing, is the clearest summary of what the ICICI Prudential PMS Value Strategy has been doing since January 2004 — more than two decades, spanning several full market cycles, longer than most PMS strategies in India have existed at all. Money n Wealth is an AMFI-registered mutual fund distributor and APMI-registered PMS distributor focused on Portfolio Management Services and Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) in India. Here is a closer look at how the Value Strategy defines and finds value, what it owns today, and how it has actually performed. Quick Facts: ICICI Prudential PMS Value Strategy Inception Date January 28, 2004 Benchmark BSE 500 TRI Ideal Investment Horizon 3 years and above Portfolio Style Diversified, sector & market-cap agnostic (~25-35 stocks) Number of Holdings 35 stocks (as of July 31, 2026) Fund Manager Managed under Anand Shah, CIO – PMS & AIF, ICICI Prudential AMC About the ICICI Prudential Value Strategy The Value Strategy aims to offer a diversified portfolio of stocks that have high potential but are quoting at a discount to their fair or intrinsic value. ICICI Prudential is explicit that this is not the same as simply buying the statistically cheapest stocks on the market — the strategy invests in undervalued companies that also show potential for sustainable long-term growth, with visible competitive advantages and capable management. It is run as a buy-and-hold, sector- and market-cap-agnostic portfolio, with the shortest recommended investment horizon (three years) among ICICI Prudential's style-based strategies, reflecting the fact that value re-ratings can sometimes play out faster than growth or contrarian theses. How Stocks Are Selected Value is filtered through the same BMV framework (Business, Management, Valuation) used across ICICI Prudential Alternate Investments' PMS & AIF platform, drawing on in-house research covering roughly 680 companies. For this strategy specifically, the Portfolio Manager applies a due-diligence process built around multiple value-oriented parameters, not price-to-earnings or price-to-book in isolation, to identify stocks trading below their fair value with a credible path to closing that gap. This is consistent with commentary from ICICI Prudential's CIO for PMS & AIF, Anand Shah, who has pointed to large private banks and select domestic cyclicals as offering "valuation comfort" relative to segments of the market that re-rated sharply in prior years — precisely the kind of setup a valuation-anchored strategy like this one is designed to exploit. Portfolio Snapshot (as of July 31, 2026) The Value Strategy holds 35 stocks , with its top 5 sectors accounting for 55.60% of assets and its top 10 holdings at 46.19%. Top Holdings % of Assets Bharti Airtel Ltd 5.88% ICICI Bank Ltd 5.51% Samvardhana Motherson International Ltd 5.39% Larsen & Toubro Ltd 5.30% State Bank of India 4.67% Tata Steel Ltd 4.46% Sarda Energy and Minerals Ltd 4.34% Vardhman Textiles Ltd 3.77% Jindal Stainless Ltd 3.50% HDFC Bank Ltd 3.37% Top 5 sectors: Ferrous Metals (15.98%), Banks (15.57%), Auto Components (11.81%), Cement & Cement Products (6.19%), Telecom Services (6.04%). Market-cap mix: Large-cap 50.57%, Small-cap 37.13%, Mid-cap 9.58%, Cash & Others 2.72% — the highest small-cap allocation among ICICI Prudential's style-based (non-marketcap-labelled) strategies, consistent with where deeper valuation discounts currently exist. Performance Track Record Period Value Strategy BSE 500 TRI 1 Year 10.63% 2.98% 3 Years 18.17% 11.89% 4 Years 24.79% 13.25% 5 Years 20.05% 12.35% Since Inception (Jan 2004) 12.97% 12.36% Returns above one year are annualised; figures are as of July 31, 2026, based on aggregate Time-Weighted Rate of Return across client accounts and not verified by SEBI. Note the 1-year return of 10.63% is well ahead of the benchmark's 2.98%, while the strategy's 4-year return of 24.79% is the strongest medium-term number of any ICICI Prudential style-based strategy reviewed here. The portfolio's holdings carry the lowest Price-to-Book ratio among ICICI Prudential's style-based strategies (2.58x as of July 31, 2026) alongside a P/E of 23.32x — tangible evidence of the "reasonable price" half of the strategy's mandate. Bar chart comparing ICICI Prudential Value Strategy PMS returns with the BSE 500 TRI over 1, 3 and 5 years and since January 2004, as of July 31, 2026 Value Strategy vs BSE 500 TRI (as of July 31, 2026) Who This Strategy May Suit Value suits investors who want their equity exposure explicitly anchored to valuation discipline, and who are comfortable with a portfolio that can look meaningfully different from the broad market in sector composition — currently tilted towards metals, banks and auto components rather than the retail and new-economy names that dominate some of ICICI Prudential's other strategies. Its three-year recommended horizon is the shortest on the platform (shared with Largecap and SMART), though value re-ratings, like any thesis, do not follow a fixed timetable. Money n Wealth's View Two decades of continuous operation gives the Value Strategy something few PMS mandates can claim: a track record that includes the 2008 crash, the 2020 pandemic crash, and multiple smaller corrections in between, and it has still compounded ahead of its benchmark since inception. As an APMI-registered PMS and AIF distributor, Money n Wealth sees genuine value discipline — buying good businesses cheap, not just cheap businesses — as one of the harder capabilities to maintain consistently, which is exactly why a two-decade track record is worth more scrutiny than a two-year one. For a broader view of how such long-horizon strategies fit into a portfolio, see our note on PMS versus mutual funds (/insights/pms-vs-mutual-funds-1-crore-investors) . How This Strategy Compares With ICICI Prudential's Other PMS Strategies ICICI Prudential runs ten PMS strategies from the same research platform. The table below sets them side by side so you can see where each sits on market-cap tilt, track record and horizon. Returns are as disclosed by ICICI Prudential AMC as of July 31, 2026 (TWRR, annualised above one year, not verified by SEBI); the since-inception column shows the strategy against its own benchmark (BSE 500 TRI, except Largecap, which uses Nifty 50 TRI). Strategy Inception Largest cap exposure Stocks 1Y 3Y 5Y Since inception vs benchmark Horizon Growth Leaders (/insights/icici-prudential-growth-leaders-strategy-pms-review) Dec 2000 Large-cap 60.56% 35 6.37% 15.84% 14.52% 12.16% vs 12.36% 4 years+ Value (/insights/icici-prudential-value-strategy-pms-review) Jan 2004 Large-cap 50.57% 35 10.63% 18.17% 20.05% 12.97% vs 12.36% 3 years+ Largecap (/insights/icici-prudential-largecap-strategy-pms-review) Mar 2009 Large-cap 91.40% 28 7.54% 17.57% 15.46% 15.96% vs 14.83% 3 years+ ACE (/insights/icici-prudential-ace-strategy-pms-review) Dec 2010 Large-cap 51.38% 34 6.90% 19.62% 14.33% 14.51% vs 11.90% 4 years+ SMART (/insights/icici-prudential-smart-strategy-pms-review) Oct 2014 Large-cap 64.87% 34 7.02% 18.96% 19.24% 14.52% vs 12.94% 3 years+ Contra (/insights/icici-prudential-contra-strategy-pms-review) Sep 2018 Large-cap 71.46% 39 6.26% 15.09% 16.56% 18.10% vs 13.07% 4 years+ PIPE (/insights/icici-prudential-pipe-strategy-pms-review) Sep 2019 Small-cap 84.01% 40 9.59% 17.04% 19.18% 24.72% vs 16.35% 5 years+ Emerging Leaders (/insights/icici-prudential-emerging-leaders-strategy-pms-review) Feb 2024 Mid-cap 59.48% 39 10.30% — — 9.65% vs 6.94% 4 years+ Quanti-FI (/insights/icici-prudential-quanti-fi-strategy-pms-review) Feb 2024 Large-cap 58.52% 47 4.88% — — 5.64% vs 7.85% 4 years+ Rising Stars (/insights/icici-prudential-rising-stars-strategy-pms-review) Feb 2026 Small-cap 66.62% 33 — — — 10.45%* vs -0.05%* 5 years+ * Rising Stars launched in February 2026; its since-inception figures are absolute (not annualised) returns over about five months. A dash means the strategy does not yet have that track record. Watch for overlap. Several ICICI Prudential strategies share top holdings — names such as ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, Larsen & Toubro, Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel and FSN E-Commerce (Nykaa) appear in many of the portfolios above. If you are considering two ICICI Prudential strategies together, compare their holdings first so the second one genuinely diversifies the first. Fees, Minimum Investment and Taxation The minimum investment for any ICICI Prudential PMS strategy, as for every PMS in India, is ₹50 lakh, which can usually be funded in cash, by transferring existing listed securities, or both, subject to the portfolio manager's acceptance. PMS fees typically follow a fixed-fee, performance-fee (charged above a hurdle, usually with a high-water mark) or hybrid structure; the exact fee schedule and exit load are set out in ICICI Prudential's Disclosure Document, which you should read before signing. Because the shares sit in your own demat account, every sale by the portfolio manager is taxed in your hands: short-term capital gains on listed equity at 20% and long-term gains at 12.5% above the annual ₹1.25 lakh exemption, with dividends taxed at your slab rate. See how PMS onboarding, funding, taxation and exit work (/insights/how-pms-works-onboarding-funding-taxation-exit) and PMS vs mutual funds (/insights/pms-vs-mutual-funds-1-crore-investors) for more. Related reading on Money n Wealth ICICI Prudential Contra Strategy: contrarian PMS since 2018 (/insights/icici-prudential-contra-strategy-pms-review) ICICI Prudential Growth Leaders: multi-cap PMS since 2000 (/insights/icici-prudential-growth-leaders-strategy-pms-review) ICICI Prudential SMART Strategy: quant-plus-fundamental PMS (/insights/icici-prudential-smart-strategy-pms-review) Portfolio Management Services in India: the 2026 guide (/insights/pms-india) Explore PMS strategies with Money n Wealth (/products/pms) Frequently Asked Questions How does ICICI Prudential define "value" in this strategy? As "good business at a reasonable/attractive price" rather than "mediocre business at a bargain price" — the strategy looks for undervalued companies with sustainable long-term growth potential, not simply the statistically cheapest stocks. How long has the Value Strategy been running? Since January 28, 2004 — over two decades, making it one of the longest-running strategies on ICICI Prudential's PMS platform. What is the minimum recommended investment horizon? Three years, the shortest among ICICI Prudential's style-based PMS strategies. How has it performed recently? Over the year to July 31, 2026, it returned 10.63% against 2.98% for the BSE 500 TRI, and 18.17% annualised over three years against 11.89% for the benchmark. Which sectors does ICICI Prudential Value Strategy hold? As of July 31, 2026, the top five were Ferrous Metals (15.98%), Banks (15.57%), Auto Components (11.81%), Cement and Cement Products (6.19%) and Telecom Services (6.04%), together 55.60% of the portfolio. That is a more cyclical, valuation-led mix than ICICI Prudential's growth-oriented strategies, which hold more retail and new-economy names. How is the Value Strategy different from ICICI Prudential's Contra Strategy? Value buys good businesses trading below fair value; Contra buys companies facing temporary negative sentiment, industry consolidation or special situations. As of July 31, 2026, Value held 37.13% in small caps and Contra 21.55%. Value suggests three years or more and Contra four. Both hold several of the same large names, so check overlap before combining them. Disclaimer: This article is for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer/solicitation to invest in any security or PMS strategy. Portfolio Management Services are subject to market risks; please read the Disclosure Document and Client Agreement carefully before investing. Performance figures cited are as disclosed by ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company Ltd. as of July 31, 2026, are based on aggregate client performance using the Time-Weighted Rate of Return method, are not verified by SEBI, and individual client returns may vary. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Stocks, sectors and holdings mentioned are illustrative of the portfolio's oldest client account as of the stated date, may change without notice, and should not be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell. Money n Wealth (Predics Fintech Services Pvt Ltd) is an AMFI-registered Mutual Fund Distributor (ARN-121995) and APMI-registered PMS Distributor (APRN-07444); this is not a SEBI-registered investment advisory service. Please consult your financial advisor before making investment decisions.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does ICICI Prudential define "value" in this strategy?
As "good business at a reasonable/attractive price" rather than "mediocre business at a bargain price" — the strategy looks for undervalued companies with sustainable long-term growth potential, not simply the statistically cheapest stocks.
How long has the Value Strategy been running?
Since January 28, 2004 — over two decades, making it one of the longest-running strategies on ICICI Prudential's PMS platform.
What is the minimum recommended investment horizon?
Three years, the shortest among ICICI Prudential's style-based PMS strategies.
How has it performed recently?
Over the year to July 31, 2026, it returned 10.63% against 2.98% for the BSE 500 TRI, and 18.17% annualised over three years against 11.89% for the benchmark.
Which sectors does ICICI Prudential Value Strategy hold?
As of July 31, 2026, the top five were Ferrous Metals (15.98%), Banks (15.57%), Auto Components (11.81%), Cement and Cement Products (6.19%) and Telecom Services (6.04%), together 55.60% of the portfolio. That is a more cyclical, valuation-led mix than ICICI Prudential's growth-oriented strategies, which hold more retail and new-economy names.
How is the Value Strategy different from ICICI Prudential's Contra Strategy?
Value buys good businesses trading below fair value; Contra buys companies facing temporary negative sentiment, industry consolidation or special situations. As of July 31, 2026, Value held 37.13% in small caps and Contra 21.55%. Value suggests three years or more and Contra four. Both hold several of the same large names, so check overlap before combining them.
