The much-talked-about Kale Consultants' IPO, which opened last Friday, will clash with the issues of VSNL, Compucom Software and Centurion Bank. These three issues open for subscription on Monday. Together they would be mobilising around Rs 150 crore from the public. But the cake is at least 10 times bigger than the size of issues hitting the market. No wonder merchant bankers have started estimating the rate of oversubscription their issues will command. And, the surefire trick is the issue financing offered by private sector banks and finance companies.

The public issue kitty could be roughly assumed to be Rs 1,700 crore, if the Polaris issue is taken as anindication. The Polaris issue was oversubscribed over 20 times, collecting about Rs 1,900 crore. After retaining a little over Rs 90 crore, Polaris has already despatched the refund orders for the balance to investors. Priced at Rs 210, the company has already applied for listing on the stock exchanges.

This kind of float money will obviously benefit the two software issues--Kale Consultants and Compucom Software. For the other two--VSNL and Centurion Bank--the response is likely to be good. This would be so especially for the VSNL issue, which will be available at a substantial discount of 39 per cent to the current market price. While the shares are being offered at Rs 750, they are quoting at Rs 1,044 on the BSE.

Investor response to the Centurion Bank could be linked to the performance of TimesBank in the secondary markets. TimesBank (offer price: Rs 10) made a debut last Friday on NSE at Rs 12.50 and Rs 15.10 on the Delhi Stock Exchange. Centurion is also offering its share at par.