Samir Arora’s Helios Capital gets final SEBI nod for MF license; AMC to focus on active funds

This is kind of homecoming for Samir Arora, who was the Chief Investment Officer of Alliance Capital’s Indian mutual fund business from 1993 to 1998.

Helios Capital Management has received final approval from capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to launch a mutual fund house, its founder Samir Arora announced on August 10.

“I am very happy to announce that SEBI has granted approval to Helios Mutual Fund. We need your wishes and support to make this new venture a success,” Arora wrote on platform X, formerly Twitter.

In a response to Moneycontrol’s queries, Arora said that they would look to launch the fund house as soon as possible. “It would still take a few months,” he added.

Arora also divulged that the fund house would look to focus only on active funds. This is against the trend of recent mutual fund house launches, which had focused on passive funds.

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Notably, this is kind of homecoming for Arora who was earlier the Chief Investment Officer of Alliance Capital’s Indian mutual fund business.
From 1993 to 1998, Arora was the CIO of Alliance Capital Mutual Fund. Along with managing Alliance Capital’s Asian Emerging Markets mandates, he also managed all of Alliance Capital’s India-dedicated equity funds.

Aditya Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company Ltd in 2004 signed an agreement with Alliance Capital Asset Management (India) Private Ltd to acquire the rights to manage the Indian mutual fund assets of Alliance Capital Mutual Fund.

Helios Capital Management Pte Ltd, a portfolio management service founded in 2005, is a Singapore-based asset management company managing India-focused long/short and long-only fund/mandate and a global Long Only equity fund.

The PMS applied for a mutual fund license in February 2021 and received in-principle approval in September 2022.

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Apart from Helios Capital, Zerodha Broking Limited and Old Bridge Capital Management Private Limited are also waiting for final approval from SEBI to launch a mutual fund house.

Further, brokerage firm AngelOne and Emkay Global Financial Services had also received in-principle approvals from SEBI for mutual fund business.

While, in-principle approval is under consideration of Unifi Capital, Alpha Alternatives Fund Advisors and Wizemarkets Analytics.

In June, Bajaj Finserv Mutual Fund became the 43rd asset management company in India in the Rs 46 lakh crore mutual fund sector.

As per SEBI, Indian asset management ecosystem has undergone a significant transition over a span of last five years.

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“The assets under management (AUM) of the mutual fund (MF) industry grew at a rapid pace since 2018-19. As on March 31, 2023, AUM of the MF industry stood at Rs 39.4 trillion and the number of mutual fund accounts/folios was 14.57 crore, of which the unique number of folios was 3.77 crore,” the regulator had recently said in its annual report for 2022-23.

Nithin Kamath, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zerodha, had last month said that they expect to get final approval from SEBI in one-two months. Zerodha aims to launch India’s first passive-only asset management company (AMC).