Market sources, however, put the figure to a more conservative level of around 9 to 11 times of the size. Through its maiden public offering, the company has put on offer 1.42 crore shares (book building plus fixed price) of Rs 4 each.

At the time of going to the press, the final figures were still being collated and overseas orders were coming in. The company, which had given an indicative price range of Rs 500 to Rs 580 for the bidders, will finalise the price on Thursday.

According to the BSE's cumulative demand chart, the bidding through BOLT terminals had generated demand for 85,151,700 shares till November 23. According to brokers, as in most of the IPOs, a substantial chunk of demand comes on the last day of subscription, it is expected that the final demand, even by conservative estimates, could be in the range of 10 crore shares on the BSE alone. If we take the figures generated on the NSE at the same level, the total demand would be for around 20 crore shares - an oversubscription of around 16 times the initial number of shares that were on offer, said a city-based broker.

According to the prospectus, the fixed-price portion for 14,20,000 shares is scheduled to open on December 10 and would close on December 14. One of the main objectives of the company's current issue is to raise funds for acquisitions and upon listing to make future acquisitions using shares as currency for further acquisitions.