Helios MF remains bullish on equities despite volatile markets; investing where valuations are attractive: CEO Irani

Dinshaw Irani, the CEO of Helios Mutual Fund, blamed high taxation, apart from the current volatility amid the West Asia conflict for the massive exodus of foreign institutional investors

Over the past few weeks, the conflict in West Asia that has driven up oil prices and disrupted supply chains has rattled stock markets. Year-to-date, the benchmark BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 have fallen close to 9%. However, the volatility hasn’t stopped Helios Mutual Fund from continuing to invest.

“Initially we thought the war won’t last long. After the first two weeks, as the war continued, we decided to not deploy cash in a rush and wait and see what happens. But stock prices have kept getting lucrative, and we are investing wherever the valuations are attractive,” Dinshaw Irani, CEO of Helios MF tells Business Today.

The money is being deployed in sectors like banks, select non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), hospitals, consumption and some new-age firms.

“We are selectively deploying in stocks we are comfortable with. We are not trying to find new ideas amid the uncertainty and deploying in the old ones only,” noted Irani.

The fund house is avoiding sectors like hospitality, which have been impacted by a reduction in tourism amid the conflict. It is also still not investing in the software services sector, where demand has slowed and there remains a lot of uncertainty on growth as AI (artificial intelligence) usage gains traction.

“The valuations are low. But we feel there will be de-growth in the space. There’s a painful reset expected, like margin erosion, lay-offs etc. While it will not vanish, it will have to evolve,” opined Irani.  

Among the 24 markets in the MSCI Emerging Markets basket, India has been one of the worst performers, declining around 14% in dollar terms, he pointed.

Foreign portfolio investors have pulled out massively from Indian markets over the past year. Year to date till April 9, 2026, FPIs had pulled out over Rs 1.77 lakh crore from India’s equity market, eclipsing the more than Rs 1.66 lakh crore they pulled out in 2025, according to data from NSDL. In March alone, they pulled out close to Rs 1.18 lakh crore, and have further sold around Rs 46,000 crore in April.

Apart from the geopolitical conflict that has put pressure on India’s economy, Irani also blames too much taxation on equities for this massive exodus of FPI money.

“From 2016 onwards, every single budget has tinkered with taxes or capital gains. That gets masked if you have growth. But the day your growth turns, you suffer the most, as the FPIs just sell and get out,” he stresses.

The fund house, however, still remains bullish on Indian equities and Irani is hopeful that the market will rebound once the war stops and the related issues are sorted out.

Samir Arora-backed Helios MF, which launched its first scheme in 2023, is an equity focused asset manager and intends to remain so. The fund house currently has eight schemes in its basket – small-cap, flexi-cap, balanced advantage, financial services, mid-cap, large- and mid-cap, arbitrage and overnight. The fund house has no plans to launch debt schemes, other than the overnight fund it currently has. Also, it won’t look at multi-asset funds, which have found favour in the industry amid the uncertain times.

He feels that there was lot of speculation in gold and silver, and while there has been some correction, he believes in silver there remains some “froth” and therefore there should be some more correction.

Helios MF had plans to launch a consumption fund, but has since deferred those plans, amid the current uncertainty.

“We had a consumption production that we had taken approval of. But we are not launching because we don’t think now is the right time to launch it, because if the war lasts longer, then inflation, supply chain, demand, everything gets impacted,” noted Irani.