Two IIM-C Lehman Brothers

Two IIM-C students of the Class of 2009, who had interned with Lehman Brothers in summer, got their pre-placement offers just 15-20 days ago. "We interned at the London office. Work was as usual... no one had any idea that trade was declining," said one of the interns.

Investment bankers including Merrill Lynch and the now-collapsed Lehman Brothers have been big recruiters on the IIM-C campus. For example, last year, 34% of a batch of 291 got jobs in the investment banking and financial services sector.

Even for summer placements, last year, firms such as Merrill Lynch hired 18 students, Morgan Stanley (11), JP Morgan Chase (13) and HSBC Global Investment Banking Division (6). "Both Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers are two big players as far as placements are concerned," admitted IIM-C chief administrative officer Dinesh Varma. "They are good paymasters too. Probably, this year we will miss them. There's bound to be some impact but nothing that we cannot overcome," he added.

For the interns, there has been no official communication yet, but they know they will have to put in their names for the permanent placement programme in March next year. "We put in 12-13 hours a day at the London office and worked on hot sectors like commodities and equity sales. Everyone there was very interested in India," the intern recalled.

Last year, salaries for international jobs crossed the Rs 1 crore mark and the highest domestic salary, including bonuses, was in the range of Rs 65-70 lakh per annum, offered by a leading international investment bank. "There were a total of 32 offers made to students by Slot Zero Investment banks," said Rahul Ajmani, placement coordinator at IIM-C. Some of the top notch firms which hired students from the batch of 2008 include Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, Lehman Brothers, UBS, JP Morgan Chase and ING amongst others.
-By Sudipta Datta