This will provide an opportunity to investors to exit the fund at net asset value and not through bourses where Goldshare units currently trade at Rs 7.70 - a steep discount of 25 per cent to the NAV of Rs 10.24. "We want to give the investor the actual networth which he deserves so that he realises the worth of investment that he has made," says Nischal Maheshwari, chief executive officer of Apple Asset Management Ltd.

The market has probably got wind of the impending conversion since Goldshare counter on BSE has seen 40,000 units exchange hands in the last two trading sessions. The price has also gone up from Rs 7.10 to Rs 7.70.

Thus, if an investor were to buy Goldshare units at a price of Rs 7.70 and opt for repurchase at Rs 10.24 on June 15 (assuming the NAV to be constant), it translates into a hefty gain of 33 per cent in approximately 35 days.

However,for original investors in the scheme, the repurchase at NAV is unlikely to provide any solace since appreciation in four years since launch is a mere 2.4 per cent or 0.6 per cent per annum. Launched in April 1994, the scheme was to be redeemed in June 1999. The corpus of the scheme was Rs 57.8 crore as on April 24, 1998.

It has been a demand of the mutual fund industry to mandatorily convert closed-end schemes into open-end ones within three years of operation, if the scheme is generating negative returns. The fund managers at Apple Mutual Fund have taken the lead and given a sigh of relief to investors who want to get out.

>"The Midas scheme entered into a new phase with restructuring strategy, backed by constant monitoring of the portfolio. Through timely sale and purchase, we have been able to bring a turnaround in the performance of the scheme particularly, since January 1997," said senior manager equity research of Apple Mutual Fund, Hitesh Zaveri.

The top ten holdings of Apple Midas which form 40per cent of the portfolio consist of Satyam computers, Infosys Technologies, Aptech, NIIT, HLL, HPCL, SBI, Tata Tea, Hoechst and Essel Packaging. The portfolio has allocated 25 per cent of its investments to software stocks.

Being an equity oriented scheme, close to 75 per cent of the portfolio is invested in equity, 15-18 per cent in debt and the remaining in money market securities.