A summer of finance at IIMs

Slowdown casts a shadow on summer placements at B-schools, but the scenario isn’t all bleak.

Summer placements at B-schools this season weren’t as bright as last year, but offers from the finance sector added a silver lining.

“The offers, compared to last year, were less but recruiters from the finance sector made their presence felt,” says Saral Mukherjee, placement chairperson, IIM-Ahmedabad. “Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) accepted our invitation, though it made 12 offers as against 22 last year,” Mukherjee adds.

The summer placement process at premier B-schools for students of the first-year post graduate programme comprised four clusters. These included cohorts of international investment banks, global strategy consulting, private equity, venture capital, investment management firms, marketing, financial services, advisory, FMCG, business development and strategy, and general management.

A $6-billion hedge fund visited the IIM-Calcutta campus, apart from JP Morgan which offered a student an internship at the chief investment officer’s desk. While RBS made the maximum number of offers (15), UBS followed with 12 offers. Other major finance recruiters at IIM-C included Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Nomura, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, HSBC (Global), Citigroup and French investment bank BNP Paribas. Investment banks Elara Capital and Equirus Capital, private equity firms Jacob Ballas Capital, M-cap fund advisers Clearwater Capital and Walden International also hired from IIM-C. Houlihan Smith, a specialised investment bank, also recruited exclusively from IIM-C, said the institute.

At IIM-Bangalore, financial services absorbed around 33 per cent of the students, followed by sales and marketing (32 per cent). While offers in the management consulting sector accounted for 17 per cent, general management and leadership areas saw 11 per cent offers. “This year we placed the largest-yet cohort,” says P D Jose, chairperson, Office of Career Development Services, IIM-B. “It was heartening to see the number of first-time companies on campus, most of which were from the FMCG, manufacturing, technology and services sectors. There were also a number of overseas assignments,” he adds.

IIM-Lucknow continued its relationship with McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group after being the only campus to secure 100 per cent pre-placement offer conversion. IIM-L also became one of the few campuses to host hedge funds for summer recruitments. The institute saw its most successful Day Zero in its history with 50 offers. The process of summer placements was completed in a record six days for its largest ever batch of 434 students with 583 offers.

“This year, more private equity and venture capital companies made offers to students,” says S Karthikeyan, a student member of the placement committee at IIM-B. Companies which recruited from the campus include Blackstone Group, ChrysCapital and Morgan Stanley PE. Goldman Sachs recruited 10 students across six desks, while RBS made 14 offers for multiple locations across the globe. Duferco offered a trading assignment based out of Lugano, Switzerland. O3 Capital recruited students for investment banking, quantitative trading and private equity functions.

Other banks that recruited from IIM-B this year include Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, Citi Global, Deutsche Bank (Global Markets-London), HSBC (HK), Morgan Stanley, Nomura, Rothschild and Standard Chartered (Financial Markets). Indian investment banks were represented by Avendus Capital, Edelweiss Capital and ICICI Securities amongst others.

Apart from finance, consulting firms were also top recruiters at the campuses. “Consulting firms made 12 offers at IIM-A for summer internships this year,” says Ravish Kumar, recruitment secretary IIM-A Placement Committee. “The number of students who accepted the offers in some of the clusters was marginally lower than last year,” he adds.