Helios Rising
Helios PMS | Equity | | PMSIME's View on Helios Rising
Strategy
Theme Based Aprroach
Investment Fund
Rising India PMS is still young, however, the strong AMC pedigree, experienced team and good strategy make it a strong multi-cap strategy option for investors.
Fund's Strategy View
The Strategy centers on theme-based stock selection, capitalizing on India's growth drivers such as privatization, demographic shifts, and global competitiveness. It follows a diversified portfolio approach with a focus on negative selection to identify 2 kinds of stocks - "high confidence in reasonable returns" (10-20 stocks) and "reasonable confidence in high returns" (20-30 stocks).
Fund Performance
Fund returns are largely in-line with category average returns over the past 5 years.
IME's View on Helios PMS
View on AMC
Helios India operates in close collaboration with Helios Singapore, sharing a common investment team that manages both FII mandates and long-only as well as long-short strategies. With over 25 years of experience in Indian equities, Helios Singapore brings deep institutional memory and market insight. Key team members—Samir Arora and Dinshaw Irani—each have more than two decades of investment experience, reinforcing the fact that Helios India is backed by a seasoned global team and is far more than just another new PMS entrant.
AMC's Pedigree
Helios Singapore, with 25 years of experience, manages FII funds in Indian equities. It is supported by its parent company and continues to excel in the industry.
AMC Team
Samir Arora and Dinshaw Irani have over 25 years of experience each. Arora has managed FII funds at Helios Singapore with an India-dedicated strategy since 2005, while Irani was a research advisor there. The senior team members have worked together for 15-20 years and are skilled in navigating different market conditions.
Investment Philosophy
Helios’ investment philosophy is built on a foundation of negative screening, aiming to reduce the risk of poor investment outcomes. Rather than chasing winners, the strategy systematically eliminates weak candidates from a universe of 500 stocks using rigorous filters across opportunity size, governance standards, valuation excesses, disruption risk, management quality, and financial health. This approach strengthens portfolio quality by avoiding fundamentally flawed businesses.
Investment Philosophy
Helios believe that strong and consistent portfolio returns come from both stock selection and careful portfolio construction. They build a portfolio on the basis of:- What stocks to buy
- What is their time horizon
- How many stocks to own
- When to sell
Investment Strategy
Themes to avoid
- Commodities
- 'One billion consumer stories'- sectors where investors rely on billion plus Indian population to justify the opportunity
- State-owned companies
- Bet on India, not on Indians
Sell Strategy
Sell when there is deterioration in fundamental developments, or when stock returns significantly outperform underlying earnings growth, high valuation.Invesment Process
- Universe: 500 companies
- Level 1: rejecting stocks to 275 stocks on the basis of favoured themes
- Level 2: rejection based on industry dynamics, envisaged disruption, company management strength, corporate governance, financial analysis, medium-term triggers, valuation to be able to arrive at 150 stocks
- Level 3: rejection consists of rigorous bottom-up research to arrive at an investable universe of 60 stocks
- Portfolio: Handpick stocks that give high confidence to build a portfolio of 30-35 stocks
Portfolio Construction
The number of stocks to own at a time is driven by a robust portfolio that needs to have 2 kinds of stocks- Stocks offering "High confidence in reasonable returns": 10 to 15 stocks (50-60% weight)
- Stocks offering "Reasonable confidence in high returns": 15 to 25 stocks (40-50% weight)
Trailing Performance
| 1yr | 3yr | 5yr | Since Inception | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Helios Rising | 1 | 19.3 | 20.6 | 22.2 |
| S&P BSE 500 | -6.6 | 14.7 | 19.2 | 21.6 |
| Alpha over Broad Mkt BM | 7.6 | 4.6 | 1.4 | 0.6 |
Performance as of: 30-Sep-25 | Inception Date: 16-Mar-20 | Performance are post-fees, pre-taxes. Global funds denominated in USD or fund currency.
Investment team
Samir Arora | 5-star rated FM
Founder & CIO | 35 yrs Experience | 21 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: Head of Asian Emerging Markets (Alliance Capital Management)
Samir Arora is the Founder and Fund Manager of Helios Singapore. He has been managing FII funds with India-dedicated long and long-short strategies for the past 17 years at Helios. Prior to Helios, Samir was the Head of Asian Emerging Markets at Alliance Capital Management. He started his career at Alliance Capital as an International Analyst covering sectors in Japan, Australia and New Zealand. He later relocated to India as Fund Manager and CIO of Alliance Capital's Mutual Fund business until 2003 before moving to Singapore to become Head of Asian EM. Samir Arora is a highly respected veteran of the Indian markets and has been recognised for his fund management skillsets as evident from the various awards he had won during his tenure at Alliance. He is an MBA graduate from IIM-C and received his undergrad in engineering from IIT Delhi. He also received a master's degree in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Dinshaw Irani | 5-star rated FM
CEO | 33 yrs Experience | 21 yrs at current firm
Past Experience: Executive Director (Artemis Advisors - Research Advisors to Helios Singapore), Principle Portfolio Manager (SSKI Portfolio Advisors), VP and Analyst - Asian EM (Alliance Capital Management), Analyst (Sun F&C AMC)
Dinshaw Irani is the CIO of Helios India. Prior to this, he was the executive director at Artemis Advisors (exclusive research advisors to Helios Singapore) for 14+ years. Dinshaw started his career as an Analyst at Sun F&C Mutual Fund and at Lloyd Securities. He later went on to become the VP of the Asian Emerging Market team for Alliance Capital (Mumbai) for 3 years covering consumer and pharma sectors.
