IIM placements gather steam

B-SCHOOL/ CAMPUS UPDATE

IIM C250,000 IIM A225,000 IIM B220,000  Students who do not participate in the placements this year will be eligible to apply for them for the next two years. Last year, six students had opted out of final placements.  The institute was earlier planning to establish a start-up slot for encouraging start-ups wanting to hire the students but the idea was not taken forward since the institute received less number of entries.  Incidentally, for the first time, even international companies would be paying placement fees for participation in the recruitment process. An official said the placement fees were close to Rs 1 lakh for initial participation. Final placements at IIM-A will get over on March 13.  IIM Bangalore (IIM-B) At IIM-B (day five of its final placements on Saturday), Mittal Steel is said to have offered a salary of Rs 22 lakhs.  Since IIM-B is tight-lipped about the offers, the real scene will emerge only on Monday since the final placements get over on Sunday (March 11). The average salary of the graduates who are passing out this year has so far been in the range of Rs 15-20 lakh.  This year, about 25 MNCs came to IIM-B on slot zero (day one) alone as compared to a total of 16 MNCs last year. These included McKinsey & Co, Bain & Co, Arthur D Little, Diamond Consulting and AT Kearney, private equity firms like Sun Group, Actis, Audax, and Sabre, and investment banks like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank, Barclays Capital, JP Morgan, UBS and HSBC and international research firm Gartner.  These MNCs have also offered positions in countries in West Asia for the first time this year and students have accepted offers in Dubai and Kuwait.  IIM-B has said they have seen much better profiles and salaries this year than those seen last year although the institute refused to elaborate on the salaries. Placements at the premier institute began on March 6 with over 100 companies making offers to 235 students.  IIM, Calcutta (IIM-C) The final placement frenzy began at the IIM Calcutta on Saturday. But even before the final placements started for the 2005-07 batch on March 10, three students had bagged pre-placement offers (PPOs) from companies they did their summer internship with. Two students from the batch passing out this year secured PPOs to the tune of $250,000 (more than Rs 1.1 crore) from a leading investment bank for their New York desk.  Another student has bagged an offer of