The news of bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the proposed sell-out of Merrill Lynch in the US has left students of the 2007-2009 batch of IIM in a state of shock.

A batch of IIM-Bangalore students were made pre placement offers after completing summer placements at Lehman Brothers, but now they find their future uncertain.

Aditya Kashyap, placement cell representative at IIM Bangalore without revealing the number of students who completed their summer placements at Lehman and Merrill said, students of the 2009 batch who did their summers with the Lehman Brothers and received pre-placement offers have heard no word from the organization.

But IIM Bangalore students who completed their summer traineeships this year with Merrill Lynch are not doubtful of their future, as Merrills acquirer Bank of America is also a preferred recruiter at the IIM Bangalore.

We anticipate that the situation will be similar to when Royal bank of Scotland (RBS) hired ABN AMRO bank last year, ABN stuck to recruitment plans at IIM Bangalore under the guise of RBS, said Kashyap. The fate of the 10 students who joined Lehman Brothers in Hongkong, Singapore, London, New York and Bombay this summer from IIM Bangalore is uncertain. IIM Bangalore placement cell has not heard any word from their seniors. Kashyap said, Seniors, once they graduate dont use placement committee anymore to find jobs.

Ten students of the IIM Ahmedabad got placed at Lehman Brothers this year of whom about two were from Mumbai and the rest overseas. The institute also had summer trainees placed at Lehman and Merrill this year.

Lehman Brothers was a day zero company at IIM Calcutta, which means they got their pick from the students interested in Investment Banking at IIM Calcutta. Rahul Ajmani, placement coordinator at IIM Calcutta said, Lehman made offers to four people for their London office and two joined them from IIM Calcutta this summer. Without sharing numbers Ajmani added, this year Lehman hired more summer trainees from IIM Calcutta than they did last year. Some of these students were informally told about the pre placement offers but the developments over the weekend have spoilt the dreams of students of landing with a job at the Lehman Brothers 32 offers were made to students this year at IIM Calcutta by slot zero investment banks including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, Lehman Brothers, UBS, JP Morgan Chase and ING amongst others.

Three graduates from IIM Lucknow joined Lehman Brothers this summer in their Bangalore office. One of their colleagues did his summer traineeship with Lehman from this year but with no pre-placement offer.

Lehman Brothers did not pick up any students in 2007 or 2008 from the Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad. According to an ISB spokesperson, as a lot of our students at ISB have work experience and investment banks, many times looks to hire freshers from B-schools, therefore our students do not quite fit that bill.

According to a Bloomberg report on September 15, a 21-year-old Lehman graduate trainee in London, who declined to be identified by name, said he and 90 to 95 colleagues had been called in by the human resources department and made redundant. They had started work a week ago.

Another Lehman employee in Hong Kong, dragging a suitcase, said he had decided to take his possessions home, even though no one was sure whether the companys Asian subsidiary was also declaring itself bankrupt like the US parent, the report adds.