According to market sources, at least two major global financial powerhouses with a significant presence in India have already met the UTI chief indicating their "support" to the trust.

The recent disclosures about the US-64 underlying weaknesses has given corporate houses with heavy unit holdings ideas about exiting the scheme. But this could rebound on them. "If pushed to the wall, UTI would have no other option but to sell off its holdings at hefty premiums, which foreign fund managers or domestic players would be able to offer. Look at the cement sector for example.

They have huge holdings in several cement sector stocks. If Raasi could fetch Rs 300 per share there are several others which could do the same. In most of these companies, UTI has strategic investments which have been madewell below current market prices. The trust's holdings, on the other hand, in several companies are more than that of the promoters themselves," said a source at a leading fund manager on the lookout for good buys.

The message is clear: If the trust is threatened with redemption demands, a large part of the corporate world and the stockmarkets would equally be threatened.

Sources in UTI confirmed that the trust has significant holdings in several blue chips and that it feels that this hold over the companies also needs to be assigned value to. "People are forgetting that there are several mid-size companies where UTI has significant holdings.

All these companies are good takeover targets. If one factors in the cost at which UTI entered these companies and the price that their shares could touch in the event of a takeover, experts might well be proved wrong on estimates of the value of UTI's assets", said an M&A expert. UTI insiders are essentially saying that the real value of their holdings could behigher than the value the market assigns its holdings.

This reality has sunk in for most corporates, many of whom have made a beeline to UTI expressing solidarity with the trust. "First of all there is no reason for us to go in for repurchase as the scheme has always been one which is determined by the return it gives and not by the NAV it quotes at. In any case, are we crazy to end up in a situation where UTI sells its 17 per cent holding in our company to a rival to make good our redemptions?" asked a top corporate chief on condition of anonymity.

"We have merely told UTI that it is good that transparency is being brought into the Trust. Beyond this, it is in the interest of the corporate world as well the capital markets to rally around UTI and see how best the problem of the huge depreciation in reserves can be sorted out", said another corporate big-wig.

Among the major companies in which UTI has substantial holdings are Reliance, L&T, HPCL, IOC, ONGC, SBI, Grasim, Tisco, Telco, ITC, ICICI, HDFC,Bajaj Auto, Indian Rayon and Tata Chemicals.