Kolkata: First the surprise—and a pleasant one at that. Other than Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which went bust in mid-September, all international banks that made so-called pre-placement offers, or PPOs, to students of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C) have kept their word.
Some 60 IIM-C students had received PPOs from financial and other companies they had interned with. Credit Suisse, HSBC Holdings Plc., Bank of America Corp. and even firms such as Morgan Stanley and Citibank NA, that have cut thousands of jobs, honoured their PPOs and are hiring.
Head start: IIM Calcutta students during Day Zero of final placements, which saw around 10 recruiters visit the campus. Indranil Bhoumik / Mint
“Even PPOs made by Merrill Lynch have been honoured by Bank of America (which bought Merrill),” said Paul Savio, a first-year student and external communications secretary of IIM-C. “Only Lehman Brothers didn’t because the company doesn’t exist, but everyone else has.”
IIM-C is the first of the elite business schools to conduct the final placements this year for graduating students. Around 10 recruiters visited the IIM-C campus on Saturday—the so-called Day Zero of final placements when students sit for on-campus job interviews and tests with employers—although Wall Street recruiters were missing.
This year’s final placements at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are taking place at a time when banks in the US and Europe are struggling to emerge from the crisis that ravaged the financial industry last year, requiring governments to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts. In India, economic growth this fiscal is estimated to be the slowest in six years, forcing companies to either stall hiring or hire in modest numbers.
Typically, at IIM-C, Day Zero has belonged to Wall Street investment banks who signed up the best students from the institute within the first couple of days. But this year, those that were most active were consulting firms such as Bain and Co., AT Kearney, Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey and Co. and Frost and Sullivan, according to students who did not want to be named.
Conspicuous by their absence were the big four—PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst and Young, and KPMG. They are, however, expected to turn up later, according to students. None of them wanted to be named because they have been asked by the IIM-C authorities not to speak to the press till the end of the placements.
Taking no chances
Some 10 students of the batch passing out of IIM-C this year had interned with Lehman Brothers, whose September downfall deepened the global financial crisis. Barclays Bank Plc., which has bought some of the fallen investment bank’s assets, has made an offer to one of the students, who had scored 10/10 in the post-internship evaluation.
But even those who have offers in hand want a “back up”, according to Savio, reflecting the uncertain times.