And most of these companies are on their way to the bourses through initial public offerings already planned. A handful of them are little known IT companies where the mutual fund has picked up stakes at prices as high as Rs 1,205 per share. Prominet among Alliance's investments are UTV Software & Communications, Shoppers Stop and Magnasound Ltd.

The mutual fund has picked up 5 lakh shares of Magnasound at Rs 50 each, thus having invested Rs 2.5 crore in the company which was planning a Rs 25-crore IPO. Alliance has also picked up 70,000 shares of Shoppers Stop at Rs 160 each, investing Rs 1.12 crore in the process. Its investments in UTV was at Rs 500 each. For 1 lakh shares in the media company, the mutual fund had paid Rs 5 crore. UTV is planning to go public through the book building route.

Alliance, through its New Millenium fund, has also picked up 30,000 shares of a little-known company named Danlaw Technologies at a whopping Rs 1205 per share. The mutual fund's investments in the company is pegged at Rs 3.61 crore.The other lesser-known infotech companies in Alliance's latest portfolio comprise of Magic Software (1.525 lakh shares at Rs 125 each, aggregating Rs 1.91 crore) and Mediline Equipment (2 lakh shares at Rs 250 each aggregating Rs 5 crore).

Alliance MF is one of the leading private sector mutual funds which attracted a 82,000 investors under its Alliance sector series funds, including the Alliance New Millennium Fund. As on March, 31 2000 the New Millenium fund had an asset size of Rs 773.44 crore.