| . | The sudden jump of 115 points took the Sensex on last Friday to 4765. Many of the technical analysts have now begun to forecast a further jump in the coming days. During the last two months when the IT stocks had gone down, many pessimists had been talking about the "Internet Bubble and its bursting". During this phase, many of the risk capital financiers such as "Angel Investors", "Incubators" and "Venture Capital Financiers" were stuck with investments which they had planned to offload through IPO s. They have now temporarily suspended their financing operations and are awaiting release of their prior investments. Entrepreneurs have therefore started looking at the retail investor market in India once again and started offering shares at par through Public issues. In otherwords, the retail investors are being once again called upon to play the role of a venture capitalists which they have successfully played in the past. If you are one of those who would count the average return of an investment basket and not unduly worry about a few dud investments amongst them, you should look at a strategy of investing selectively in some of the forthcoming new issues. Need less to say that you need to guard against promoters with a dubious background out there only to cheat the public. From out of the few issues that are presently before the public, one issue which appears to have a good promise is the issue of 13.25 lakh equity shares of Rs 10 each for cash at par from the Chennai based Cyberwave Internet Solutions Limited. The main promoters of the company are two young professionals namely Mr S.Sriram and Sri P.Suresh. Mr Sriram has over 18 years of experience in the software industry in various capacities. Nothing exciting perhaps but nothing to complain either. The reason to invest in the Company can however be based on the strengths of the project and its future prospects. The Company is the first in Chennai to introduce Internet services through Cable modems. It is registered as an ISP and provides a high bandwidth internet access through select Cable operators. Presently the service is being offerred at a monthly subscription of Rs 1000 and would be available all through the day for those who buy a Cable modem costing around Rs 12,000. Even though the ISP access services from VSNL and others are now around Rs 7.50 per hour, and are furhter coming down, the attendant telephone cost works out to another Rs 25 per hour. Thus for an user, the Cyber wave service will break even at around a usage of about 35 hours per month. More over the 24 hour connectivity and the possible bandwidth of close to 100 times what is possible in the normal dial up connection of VSNL or Satyam or Dishnet, make the service readily acceptable by most of the Internet users, particularly the heavy users in the corporate sector. The internet usage is set to explode in the coming months and grow at an annual rate of around 100 % per annum for the next two years. The main constraint for the growth is the lack of proper lost mile connectivity between the consumer and the ISP which is today dependent on the inefficient telephone system. The Cable modem is a huge technical leap which can itself accelerate the growth of the Internet and create a market for itself. The project is therefore extremely sound and promising. The only risk that the project has to bear is that it is dependent on the support of the Cable operators who have to make a heavy investment of their own in equipments. While the investment aspect can be sorted out with proper pricing of the service, the support of Cable operators is a tricky issue atleast in Chennai. The Cable operators in Chennai are largely owe allegiance to the Sun TV group which is itself introducing Cable Internet shortly at a much lower rate. As a result of this, the market for Cyber wave is limited to a section of Cable operators only and the pricing may have to be dropped substantially from the current levels. However, the company being the first off the block has already captured part of the market and with a dropping of the price if necessary, it may be able to hold onto the existing clients. Further, the company is likely to extend its operations beyond Chennai into other cities and other states where the market competition may be less. In view of these prospects, the current issue at par appears to be an extremely promising opportunity. The issue is slated to openon 22 nd of June and close on 27 th of June. Na.Vijayashankar
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