Meanwhile, the asset management company has already approached Sebi to make its ELSS scheme, Tata Tax Savings Scheme open-end and the same is likely to go open-end from February 1, 1999. Under TEGF, the fund has cut its exposure to FMCG from 33 per cent to little over 17 per cent while the exposure to pharma has been increased from 8.08 per cent to 15.79 per cent. The exposure to IT has gone up from 17.58 per cent to 21.17 percent, where the rise in prices of software scrips seems to have attributed overwhelmingly to the hike in exposure rather than fresh investments.

In TTSF, exposure to FMCG has been slashed from 34 per cent to 14 per cent while in pharma, weightage has gone up marginally to 24.29 per cent from 21 per cent. In both TYCF and TTSF, the exposure to information technology has gone down slightly from its September levels. However, in pharma, the exposure of TYCF has jumped by over 10 per cent.

A number of growth funds have taken exposure to pharma in recent months, on expectations of the passage of amendments to the patents bill. This will give a big push leap to the operations of pharma sector MNCs. It will also help these companies introduce new products in the country, thereby augmenting their bottomline. While pharma counters had seen a spectacular rally in expectation of Parliament's nod to the amendments to the patents bill, these stocks fizzled out once the bill could not get the required legislativeapproval in the winter session. While HLL continues to be the top holding in TEGF, it is Novartis and NIIT in TYCF and TTSF, respectively.

The top 10 holdings of Tata Equity Growth Fund account for 40.6 per cent of the total assets. On the other hand, top 10 holdings account for 64 per cent and 65.6 per cent in case of TYCF and TTSF, respectively. In the last quarter, the NAV of TTSF has shown an increase of 15.24 per cent to Rs 12.18 while that of TYCF has shown an improvement of 11 per cent to over Rs 14.

The domestic assets under Tata asset Management have moved up from Rs 205 crore on March 31, 1998 to Rs 288 crore on December 31, 1998, showing a rise of 40.6 per cent. The offshore fund under Tata AMC has assets worth Rs 40 crore, which takes the total assets under management to over Rs 320 crore.