The company received good response from Bangalore and Hyderabad. ``Retail investors have become discerning and are investing selectively only in very good stories. We are witnessing lot of retail demand in areas like Bangalore and Hyderabad as against traditional bastions like Gujarat,'' according to the lead bookrunner, JM Morgan Stanley.

Earlier, the book building portion of Aztec Software's maiden public offer was oversubscribed by about 1.5 times. The bookbuilding, which was 90 per cent of the public offer of Rs 52 crore, had opened on October 12 with a floor price of Rs 80 per share.

The issue has been lead managed by JM Morgan Stanley in syndication with Enam Financial Consultants. The entire bookbuilding portion of Rs 46 crore and fixed price portion to the tune of Rs 2.6 crore were underwritten by JM Morgan and Enam Financial. The shares will be listed on Bangalore, Mumbai and National stock exchanges.

Incomes and profits of the company have been growing at a fast pace since financial year 2000. Its incomes and profits in the first quarter of the current financial year were more than the respective figures during the whole of the last financial year. But preceding to last year, there is not much to show. In fact, the company had seen a loss due to lower revenues and increasing costs in the year ending 1999.

Incorporated in 1995, promoted by Mr S Parthasarathy, Aztec provides e-engineering solutions particularly to application service providers (ASPs) and on-line exchanges in the B2B segment. With a 100 per cent export focus, Aztec is concentrating on the US markets. It enjoys the advantage of early movers in the technology-intensive sector. It will, though, do well to expand its consumer-base and move into markets other than US, to spread the risks.