Tejas Soman

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Tejas Soman is a Fund Manager (Debt) at PPFAS Asset Management Private Limited, the asset management company of PPFAS Mutual Fund. He is a named co-fund manager of the Parag Parikh Liquid Fund (the AMC’s liquid mutual fund) and the Parag Parikh Large Cap Fund (PPLCF, launched 4 February 2026).

Soman is a senior lateral hire into the PPFAS debt team, with over a decade of fixed-income experience accumulated across the leading domestic-debt and primary-dealership desks of the Indian financial-services industry, including:

  • SBI Funds Management Limited: The AMC of SBI Mutual Fund, India’s largest mutual fund house. Soman was previously a Fund Manager at SBI Funds Management Limited.
  • Yes Bank primary dealership unit: Soman previously worked at the primary dealership unit at Yes Bank.
  • STCI Primary Dealership: Securities Trading Corporation of India Primary Dealer Limited (now ICICI Securities Primary Dealership Limited), one of India’s specialised primary dealers in government securities.
  • PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) tax and regulatory advisory: A pre-financial-services stint in PwC’s tax and regulatory advisory practice.

Soman’s role within PPFAS is structurally important for several reasons:

  • Senior fixed-income experience: Soman brings primary-dealership and large-AMC fund-management experience to the PPFAS debt team, supplementing the internally promoted debt-team members and providing breadth of market-making and treasury experience.
  • Liquid Fund principal manager: Soman is named on the Parag Parikh Liquid Fund’s fund-management roster alongside Aishwarya Dhar and Mansi Kariya.
  • Large Cap Fund debt-side co-management: Soman was named on the launch fund-management roster of PPLCF (NFO 19 to 30 January 2026, launched 4 February 2026), providing debt and money-market support for the scheme’s allocation framework.
  • Combined fund-management, primary-dealership and tax-advisory background: His career has spanned mutual fund fund-management, bank-treasury primary dealership, specialised primary dealership and PwC tax-advisory, providing an unusually broad fixed-income-plus-regulatory perspective.

This article is the principal biographical reference on Tejas Soman in the context of PPFAS and the Indian mutual fund industry. Related references include PPFAS Mutual Fund, Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund, Parag Parikh, Rajeev Thakkar, Raunak Onkar and Neil Parikh.

Education and qualifications

Tejas Soman’s published professional history, as disclosed on the PPFAS AMC fund-manager profiles page and in scheme information documents, identifies his core training in finance and tax advisory. The PwC stint in tax and regulatory advisory typically requires Chartered Accountant or equivalent professional qualifications, while his subsequent fixed-income career across primary-dealership and AMC settings is consistent with the standard credential expectations for senior debt fund managers (typically a postgraduate management degree, Chartered Accountant qualification, CFA charter, or a combination thereof).

The fixed-income functional expertise that Soman has built across his career covers:

  • Government securities (G-Secs) and Treasury Bills primary and secondary trading.
  • Open-market operations (OMO) participation, switch auctions and conversion auctions conducted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
  • Money-market instruments: commercial paper (CP), certificates of deposit (CD), Tri-Party Repo (TREPS) and Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF) operations.
  • Corporate and PSU bond underwriting, primary issuance and secondary-market trading.
  • Yield-curve management, duration positioning and credit-spread analysis.
  • Indian fixed-income tax and regulatory framework, including the post-2023 debt mutual fund taxation regime.

Career timeline

PricewaterhouseCoopers: Tax and regulatory advisory

Soman’s early career included a stint at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) tax and regulatory advisory. PwC’s tax and regulatory advisory practice covers direct tax, indirect tax (now goods and services tax), transfer pricing, regulatory compliance and tax-litigation support for corporate clients. The PwC stint provided foundational training in:

  • Indian tax law and regulatory compliance frameworks.
  • Corporate-finance-adjacent tax structuring.
  • Cross-functional engagement with auditors, legal advisers and regulators.

The PwC background is particularly relevant in the PPFAS context, where tax-aware fund management is an explicit philosophical doctrine. Tax-aware low-turnover management within equity schemes aims to defer long-term capital gains under Section 112A, and the structuring of debt-fund holdings considers the post-April-2023 debt-fund taxation regime.

STCI Primary Dealership

Soman moved from PwC into the primary dealership segment of the Indian fixed-income market, joining STCI Primary Dealer Limited (originally Securities Trading Corporation of India Limited, subsequently restructured). The Indian primary-dealership system, established under RBI guidelines in 1995, comprises a limited set of specialised firms with privileged access to RBI primary auctions for government securities and Treasury Bills. STCI Primary Dealership is one of the older and more established primary dealers, and the position provides:

  • Direct participation in RBI primary auctions for G-Secs, T-Bills and State Development Loans (SDLs).
  • Market-making in secondary G-Sec trades.
  • Underwriting commitments for primary auctions.
  • Yield-curve and duration management across the government-securities portfolio.

The STCI stint gave Soman direct primary-dealership desk experience, including the daily auction-bidding workflows, secondary-market making and RBI counterparty relationships.

Yes Bank primary dealership unit

Soman subsequently moved to the primary dealership unit at Yes Bank, a private-sector bank that operated a primary dealership division. The bank-treasury primary dealership context provided exposure to:

  • Integrated bank-treasury operations including statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) management.
  • Wholesale-bank treasury yield-curve positioning.
  • Cross-functional engagement with the bank’s corporate-bond underwriting, foreign-exchange and money-market desks.
  • Larger-balance-sheet capacity for proprietary positions in government securities.

SBI Funds Management Limited

Soman then moved from the primary dealership universe into the buy-side mutual fund industry, joining SBI Funds Management Limited (SBIFM), the AMC of SBI Mutual Fund, as a Fund Manager. SBIFM is India’s largest mutual fund house by assets, and its debt fund-management team is among the largest and most institutionally established in the country.

At SBIFM, Soman managed debt mutual fund schemes within the AMC’s broad debt-fund range, gaining experience in:

  • Open-ended and closed-ended debt scheme management under SEBI scheme-categorisation rules established by the SEBI Scheme Categorisation and Rationalisation circular of October 2017.
  • Daily portfolio-management decisions across short-duration, medium-duration and corporate-bond schemes.
  • Credit underwriting and rating-action monitoring within a large-scale buy-side desk.
  • Risk and compliance oversight within an institutionalised large-AMC framework.

The SBIFM tenure converted Soman from a sell-side primary-dealership specialist into a buy-side mutual fund fund manager, the most direct preparation for his subsequent PPFAS role.

Joining PPFAS as Fund Manager (Debt)

Soman joined PPFAS Asset Management Private Limited as a Fund Manager (Debt). The lateral hire from SBI Funds Management Limited into PPFAS represents a structural up-skilling of the PPFAS debt team with senior fund-management experience from a much larger institutional context. The PPFAS debt team had previously been principally led by Raj Mehta (internally promoted from a 2012 intern entry) and supported by Mansi Kariya and Aishwarya Dhar. Soman’s addition strengthened the team’s senior-fund-management bench.

4 February 2026: Co-Fund Manager at PPLCF launch

On 4 February 2026, after a 19 to 30 January 2026 NFO, PPFAS launched the Parag Parikh Large Cap Fund (PPLCF), benchmarked to the Nifty 100 TRI with active fund management and Smart Execution Strategies. Soman was named on the launch fund-management roster alongside Rajeev Thakkar, Raunak Onkar, Raj Mehta, Rukun Tarachandani and Aishwarya Dhar. Soman’s inclusion on the PPLCF roster reflects the fund’s design as a primarily equity scheme with structural debt and money-market support.

Current title: Fund Manager (Debt)

As of May 2026, Soman holds the title of Fund Manager (Debt) at PPFAS AMC, with named fund-management responsibility for the Parag Parikh Liquid Fund and named co-fund management responsibility for the Parag Parikh Large Cap Fund.

Role at PPFAS Mutual Fund

Tejas Soman’s role within PPFAS has multiple operational components:

Liquid Fund management

The Parag Parikh Liquid Fund (launched 9 May 2018) is benchmarked to the CRISIL Liquid Debt B-I Index. Its mandate limits residual maturity of underlying instruments to 91 days, supporting the cash-management use-case of liquid mutual funds. The Liquid Fund is co-managed by Tejas Soman, Aishwarya Dhar and Mansi Kariya, the AMC’s named debt-team trio.

Soman’s primary-dealership experience supports the scheme’s allocation to government securities and Treasury Bills, while his SBIFM mutual fund fund-management experience supports the broader portfolio-construction discipline.

Large Cap Fund debt-side co-management

The Parag Parikh Large Cap Fund (PPLCF) was launched on 4 February 2026 and is benchmarked to the Nifty 100 TRI. As an equity scheme, its core mandate is to invest in large-capitalisation Indian equities, but the fund also includes structural debt and money-market support to manage cash inflows pending equity deployment and to maintain liquidity for redemption support. Soman’s debt-side co-fund management role on PPLCF supports this structural debt allocation.

Debt-team senior bench

Soman’s senior-fund-management experience strengthens the AMC’s debt-team bench. The PPFAS debt team as of May 2026 comprises:

  • Raj Mehta: Executive Vice President and Fund Manager (Debt), responsible for the debt and overseas-equity allocation of PPFCF, and the most senior debt-team member.
  • Tejas Soman: Fund Manager (Debt) for the Liquid Fund and co-fund-management for PPLCF.
  • Aishwarya Dhar: Fund Manager (Debt) for the Liquid Fund and co-fund-management for PPLCF.
  • Mansi Kariya: Co-Fund Manager (Debt) for the Liquid Fund and PPDAAF.

Communications and investor engagement

Soman contributes to the AMC’s investor-communication function through the monthly factsheet’s debt-portfolio disclosures and through the Annual Unitholders’ Meet. The PPFAS monthly factsheet is published at https://amc.ppfas.com/downloads/factsheet/ and adheres to the AMFI factsheet template guidance.

Investment approach and debt strategy

Tejas Soman’s debt-management approach within PPFAS reflects the broader AMC philosophy adapted to fixed-income realities:

Credit-quality discipline

PPFAS’s debt portfolios are characterised by a strong preference for high credit quality: Treasury Bills, government securities, AAA-rated PSU bonds, and Tri-Party Repo (TREPS) placements. Soman’s primary-dealership background, with direct counterparty exposure to government and PSU issuers, aligns with this credit-quality discipline.

Duration management

The Liquid Fund’s mandate limits residual maturity to 91 days. The duration discipline limits interest-rate risk and credit-spread risk, both of which can materially affect mark-to-market valuation of longer-duration debt funds. Soman’s primary-dealership yield-curve experience supports the active selection of instruments along the very short end of the yield curve.

Tax-aware management

Soman’s PwC tax-advisory background uniquely positions him to apply tax-aware management considerations across the AMC’s debt portfolios. The post-April-2023 debt-fund taxation regime (see debt mutual fund taxation 2023) treats specified debt mutual fund gains as short-term irrespective of holding period. Equity-oriented hybrid schemes that retain a minimum 65% Indian equity threshold continue to qualify for Section 112A treatment under the capital gains tax in India framework.

Cash as a tool

The PPFAS investment doctrine that “cash is a tool” places explicit value on holding cash and equivalents when equity valuations are unattractive. Soman’s Liquid Fund management supports the broader AMC plumbing for cash and money-market deployment, including the inflows received by PPFCF (which has held cash levels of 18 to 25% during 2026) and other schemes.

Public engagement

Monthly factsheets

Soman’s fund-management decisions are reflected in the monthly factsheet’s debt-portfolio disclosures. The PPFAS monthly factsheet adheres to AMFI factsheet template guidance and SEBI disclosure norms.

Annual Unitholders’ Meet

Soman participates in the AMC’s Annual Unitholders’ Meet, the Berkshire-style annual open meeting held since the AMC’s inception. The 12th edition was held on 22 November 2025 at Birla Matushree Sabhaghar, Marine Lines, Mumbai at 4 PM IST, live-streamed on YouTube.

Comparison with industry peers

Tejas Soman’s profile is comparatively distinctive within the Indian mutual fund industry for several reasons:

  • Combined primary-dealership and AMC experience: The career sequence from PwC tax advisory through STCI Primary Dealership, Yes Bank primary dealership, SBI Funds Management Limited and now PPFAS is a relatively comprehensive Indian fixed-income functional sweep. Most Indian debt fund managers come from one of these tracks, not all of them.
  • Senior lateral hire to a value-investing-culture AMC: Soman’s lateral move from SBI Funds Management Limited (India’s largest mutual fund house) into PPFAS (a mid-sized AMC with a distinctive value-investing culture) is a notable example of senior fixed-income experience integrating into a culturally specific buy-side environment.
  • Tax-advisory plus fund-management combination: The combination of PwC tax-advisory training and subsequent fund-management experience is unusual and aligns well with the PPFAS philosophical preference for tax-aware management.
  • Bank-primary-dealership plus specialised-primary-dealership combination: Having served at both Yes Bank’s primary dealership unit (a bank-integrated PD) and STCI Primary Dealership (a specialised PD) provides perspective on both bank-treasury and specialised-PD operating models.

The peer comparison places Soman among a relatively small set of fund managers in India whose careers have spanned PwC tax advisory, multiple primary dealerships and large-AMC fund management.

Operational and distribution context

PPFAS Mutual Fund uses CAMS as its registrar and transfer agent, Deutsche Bank AG Mumbai branch as its custodian, and M/s. M. M. Nissim & Co. LLP as its statutory auditor. The AMC’s in-house investor platform PPFAS SelfInvest, at https://selfinvest.ppfas.com/, supports direct-plan transactions across the scheme menu, including the Liquid Fund via the PPFAS CashFlex companion application (launched 21 June 2024).

Industry utilities used by PPFAS include the MFU mutual fund utility, MF Central and the CAMS investor portal at CAMS Online, with KFin Technologies used in industry-wide common services. Mutual fund net asset values are computed under the mutual fund NAV computation framework and the applicable NAV rules under SEBI regulations.

Distribution between regular and direct plans operates under the broader direct plan adoption in India trend, with the mutual fund trail commission structure applying to regular-plan investments. Operational compliance reporting falls under the SEBI MF half-yearly trustee report framework and the SEBI MF compliance audit regime.

Tejas Soman’s fund-management mandate sits within the broader PPFAS scheme menu of seven active schemes as of May 2026:

  1. Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund (PPFCF): AMC flagship, launched 24 May 2013, flexi-cap category since 13 January 2021, AUM Rs 1,60,952 crore as of 15 May 2026.
  2. Parag Parikh Liquid Fund: Liquid scheme launched 9 May 2018, co-managed by Soman alongside Aishwarya Dhar and Mansi Kariya.
  3. Parag Parikh ELSS Tax Saver Fund: ELSS launched 4 July 2019.
  4. Parag Parikh Conservative Hybrid Fund: Launched 28 May 2021.
  5. Parag Parikh Arbitrage Fund: Arbitrage scheme launched 27 October 2023.
  6. Parag Parikh Dynamic Asset Allocation Fund (PPDAAF): Launched 22 February 2024.
  7. Parag Parikh Large Cap Fund (PPLCF): Launched 4 February 2026, with Soman on the launch fund-management roster.

See also

External references

References

  1. PPFAS AMC, “Parag Parikh Liquid Fund Fund Managers”, https://amc.ppfas.com/schemes/parag-parikh-liquid-fund/fund-managers/, accessed May 2026.
  2. PPFAS AMC, “Fund Managers”, https://amc.ppfas.com/schemes/fund-managers/, accessed May 2026.
  3. AMFI India, “PPFAS Asset Management Private Limited (Member 64)”, https://www.amfiindia.com/member/64, accessed May 2026.
  4. PPFAS AMC, “Parag Parikh Large Cap Fund KIM”, https://amc.ppfas.com/pplcf/pdf/KIM_Parag_Parikh_Large_Cap_Fund.pdf.
  5. PPFAS AMC, “Parag Parikh Large Cap Fund Scheme Page”, https://amc.ppfas.com/schemes/parag-parikh-large-cap-fund/.
  6. PPFAS AMC, “Parag Parikh Liquid Fund Scheme Page”, https://amc.ppfas.com/schemes/parag-parikh-liquid-fund/.
  7. PPFAS AMC, “Investment Process”, https://amc.ppfas.com/schemes/investment-process/.
  8. PPFAS AMC, “Monthly Factsheet Hub”, https://amc.ppfas.com/downloads/factsheet/.
  9. SEBI, “Mutual Funds Regulations, 1996”, https://www.sebi.gov.in/.
  10. AMFI India, “Industry Information”, https://www.amfiindia.com/.

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