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
The fund has outperformed peers in the last 5 year trailing returns.
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.
PMS Background
Helios Capital Management India is backed by Helios Capital Management (Singapore), an India-focused investment firm founded in 2005 by Samir Arora along with Dave Williams and Karan Trehan. Helios Singapore holds an 85% stake in Helios Capital India. The Helios platform brings over 25 years of experience in Indian equities, with a long-standing track record in managing India-dedicated FII strategies.
The India platform benefits from shared research, portfolio construction frameworks, and institutional processes with its Singapore parent. The fund management team is led by Samir Arora and Dinshaw Irani—both highly respected market veterans with over 25 years of experience each. Several senior team members have worked together for 15–20 years, providing continuity and cycle-tested decision-making.
Investment Philosophy
Helios believes that consistent long-term returns are driven not only by stock selection but equally by disciplined portfolio construction. Portfolio decisions are guided by clarity on four key dimensions:
- Stock selection: identifying businesses with durable fundamentals
- Time horizon: aligning investment duration with the business cycle
- Portfolio size: determining the optimal number of holdings
- Sell discipline: exiting when fundamentals or valuations deteriorate
Themes to Avoid
- Commodities and highly cyclical businesses
- “One-billion consumer” narratives where opportunity sizing relies purely on population scale
- State-owned enterprises
- Broad macro bets on India without company-level conviction (“bet on India, not on Indians”)
Sell Discipline
Stocks are sold when there is a deterioration in underlying fundamentals, or when stock price performance materially outpaces earnings growth, resulting in stretched valuations.
Portfolio Construction
Helios constructs portfolios using a barbell-style approach, balancing conviction and upside potential:
- High confidence, reasonable return stocks: 10–15 holdings, accounting for 50–60% of portfolio weight
- Reasonable confidence, high return potential stocks: 15–25 holdings, accounting for 40–50% of portfolio weight
Investment Process
- Universe: ~500 listed companies
- Level 1 Screening: Filter down to ~275 stocks based on preferred and avoided themes
- Level 2 Screening: Further filtering based on industry structure, disruption risk, management quality, governance, financial strength, medium-term triggers, and valuation—resulting in ~150 stocks
- Level 3 Screening: Rigorous bottom-up research to narrow the universe to ~60 investable companies
- Final Portfolio: Handpicked selection of 30–35 stocks with high conviction
Negative Selection–Driven Philosophy: Helios’ investment approach is anchored in systematically eliminating weaker businesses from the investable universe using filters around opportunity size, governance standards, competitive disruption, management quality, financial strength, and valuation exuberance. This process seeks to reduce downside risk by avoiding structurally weak or overhyped businesses.
Trailing Performance
| 1yr | 3yr | 5yr | Since Inception | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Helios Rising | 7.6 | 19.9 | 19.3 | 22.5 |
| S&P BSE 500 | 4.9 | 14.6 | 17.2 | 22 |
| Alpha over Broad Mkt BM | 2.7 | 5.3 | 2.1 | 0.5 |
Performance as of: 30-Nov-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.
Experience the benefits of working with a 'research-first' investments firm
Free 30-Day Trial
Get complimentary access to the revolutionary IME RMS (direct access to IME's central team insights across 1000's of MFs, PMSs, AIFs & Global funds - a first in the industry).
Additionally, a dedicated private banker will help build your financial plan, investment mandate & undertake a comprehensive portfolio review for free.
