``To take advantage of the euphoric conditions where issues are getting oversubscribed by 20 to 40 times, several unscrupulous promoters are already at work. Many of them may also take unfair advantage of Sebi's recent relaxation allowing IT companies to offer only ten per cent of their capital to the public,'' said Prithvi Haldea of Prime Database.

The disturbing trend of a flooding of software issues, according to Haldea, needs to be urgently corrected. Significantly, while in 1997-98, there was not even a single issue from the software sector, four software firms which entered the market in 1998-99 provided the green signal. Many of these shady companies have a `software or infotech' tag attached to their name to take advantage of theboom in software shares.

All these four issues Sonata Software (Rs 23 crore), Kpitsystem (12), Cybermate Infotek (2) and Shri M M Softek (2) evoked overwhelming response from the investors. Similar has been the success story of the seven software issues of the current fiscal: SQL Star (14 crore), Compudyne Winfosys (1), Subex System (6), Amex (7), Polaris (92), Fortune (2) and Kaashyap (3), the other two software issues of Kale Consultants (35) and Compucom (11) opening in the later part of this month are also expected to evoke a good response.

The immediate future is also likely to witness a domination of the software and banking sector. Public issues in the near future from the software sector, as per Prime Database, are expected from HCL infosystems (Rs 600 crore), Hughes Software (300), Geometric (25), SRA Systems (25), Computech (25), Wintech Computers (20), S Kumar's Microsystems (15), Helios and Matheson (11), VWC Software (10), Akshay Software (8), Kushal (6), Logix (3), Sankhya Infotech (2) and SKumar's.com (1).

Prime has pooh poohed the growing belief that the primary market has revived, stating that the facts neither suggest a revival having taken place nor the near future promises any turnaround. In the first six months of the current fiscal, only 18 public issues of both debt and equity have entered the market raising Rs 2,921 crore. In the corresponding period of the previous year, 18 issues had raised Rs 3,018 crore, Haldea said.

The equity offerings continue to be few, and even these are only courtesy the euphoria aroudn the software sector on the one hand and the statutory requirement of RBI on banks to go public on the other.

As per Prime, in the six month period, only 14 equity issues have hit the market raising a meagre Rs 592 crore. Although this compares favourably with Rs 332 crore raised in the corresponding period of the previous year, the total amount is still too small to indicate a revival.