Tremors of the financial quake on Wall Street are being felt in an institute more than several thousand miles away.

Students at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC) fear their jobs would be in jeopardy with Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch being taken over.

“The two investment banks are prime recruiters from IIMC. The recent developments will definitely affect the placements,” said Saibal Chattopadhyay, the dean (programme initiatives) at the Joka institute.

“We will have to wait to figure out how it will affect our students.”

During this year’s final placement in March, 34 per cent of the final-year students opted for jobs in the financial sector.

Investment banks made 32 offers in the coveted Slot Zero (the first day of placement which sees participation by top-notch companies).

Records in the placement office suggest that Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch were among the highest bidders. “A leading international investment bank had made an offer of Rs 1.36 crore a year during the 2008 final placement,” said an alumni who got a job with a foreign bank.

Rahul Ajmani, the placement coordinator at IIMC, said four students this year got offers from Lehman Brothers to join its offices abroad. “Two of them joined Lehman’s London office. Six students joined Merrill Lynch,” said Ajmani. The Merrill Lynch recruits are working in the US, Europe and West Asia.

Two students from the Joka institute joined Morgan Stanley in London. During the 2007 summer placement, Merrill Lynch had hired 18 students from the Joka institute, the highest across all IIMs.

The students, glued to their computers for an update on the financial upheaval, are almost resigned to a negative impact on pre-placement offers (PPOs), which usually come in after a two-month stint in various companies.

“We have not received any official word from any of the companies, but the banks have informally assured some of the students of pre-placement offers,” said Ajmani.

“The global investment banks came in larger numbers and paid higher salaries despite the fear of a crisis in the US,” he added. But things could be different next year, given the turmoil in the world financial sector and the crisis the investment banks are facing.

“As for this year’s pre-placements, we are keeping our fingers crossed. Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch may not come to Calcutta next year for recruitment. In fact, we don’t know how many financial institutions will turn up during the final placement for 2009,” said Ajmani.

Investment banks this year recruited students from all IIMs. IIM Lucknow, for the first time, saw Lehman Brothers, Barclays Capital, Citibank, JP Morgan and Chase visiting its campus. The final placement at IIM Ahmedabad, too, saw 113 students getting placed with investment banks and financial services companies, both domestic and foreign.

“But given the crisis in the world of finance, especially in the US, the placement opportunities in the sector would surely shrink,” said an IIM Calcutta professor.