A race for top investment talent is pushing India's billionaire-owned family offices to increasingly offer profit-sharing arrangements, highlighting the fierce competition for money managers in one of the world's fastest-growing wealth markets.
Billionaire family offices, including those belonging to tech founder Azim Premji and consumer tycoon Harsh Mariwala, are already paying a share of investment profits - known as carried interest - while multiple newer family offices are considering doing so, according to people familiar with the matter who requested not to be named because the details are private.
Premji's firm declined to comment and Mariwala's Sharrp Ventures confirmed.
Most family offices did not offer carried interest to their investment teams until recently and even among the largest, the structure is fairly new. Globally, less than one-third of family offices provide a long-term incentive plan for their staff. Among those that do, US family offices are the most likely to offer carried-interest and co-investment options, according to a 2025 survey by KPMG and Agreus Group.
The rise in ultra-rich sharing profits with those who manage their money in India shows how the country has become an increasingly competitive market for family office talent. A surge in personal wealth from stock sales, private equity exits and real estate deals has spawned hundreds of new investment outfits over the last decade.
"All family offices should consider implementing a long-term incentive plan for their investment teams to better align interests, foster a long-term ownership mindset, and retain key talent," said Tayyab Mohamed, co-founder of Agreus, a recruitment firm that works with family offices.
He said long-term investment plans can take many forms, including carried interest, synthetic carry arrangements, or rolling three, five or seven-year incentive plan with payouts linked to portfolio valuations.
The limited supply of experienced investment professionals is prompting wealthy Indian founders to compete with venture capital firms, asset managers and investment banks. The number of family offices in India swelled to over 300 in 2024 from just 45 in 2018, according to a November 2025 report from PwC. It is estimated that the Indian family office market has a combined asset base of more than $30 billion, according to a report by market intelligence platform 1Lattice and The Economic Times daily.
Anirudh Damani, managing partner at his family's Artha Venture Fund, said both the fund and the family office implemented a carried interest structure for associates and above across all departments.
While performance bonuses are paid on a discretionary basis at the end of the year, carried interest is a share of profits if investments generate returns above a pre-agreed minimum threshold, known as the hurdle rate.
Most family offices, even those between $20 million to $100 million in assets, are willing to offer a 10-15% profit-share on an investment with their investment officers and principals, said Vikrant Agarwal, managing partner at advisory firm Proxima Capital Services LLP. But those payouts have been more ad-hoc and paid as a performance-based annual bonus, whereas now many family offices are considering a carried interest model as a more structured option, he said.
Smaller family offices in India are willing to pay $40,000 to $60,000 annually for investment officers and principals, while experienced professionals expect at least $100,000 in annual pay, according to people familiar with the matter. Compensation packages usually comprise a fixed salary and an annual performance bonus paid across the firm.
A New Delhi-based industrial family said it recently implemented a carried interest model to compensate its investment teams, as the returns on the unlisted equities or private equity side have done well. It has introduced carry rates for each asset class and team.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
