Day 1

So finally I land a job on Day 1. It is a role which I liked and I am happy with it, so I am signing out of the process even though I have 3 shortlists tomorrow (2 of them which I reeeeaaalllly would have liked to consider and had a good chance at!). I have always been a strong opponent of the “job losses” because of the “80-20 rule” (As one of my friends put it! :) ) and so decided to act according to my beliefs. So finally, weeks and weeks of pouring over research reports, tracking the markets and economy, cramming and revising the finance subjects, tracking specific sectors and basically doing everything possible to get a fin role (except for the obvious! :) ) finally culminate in a successful switch. Another vindication of my strong belief that, if you put in your part, god does the rest!
So from about 1 hour back, I am officially out of the ISB class of 2008 placement process.
Offers are pouring at ISB and we have seen some obscene amount of money dished out by some companies (We are not supposed to discuss them in public domain, so readers will have to wait till ISB comes out with the official numbers!). One person who got this particular offer is a good friend and I think he deserves it for the elaborate and voluminous notes he used to take in each and every subject! :)
There are some really good roles/salaries on offer and then there are some companies who have the audacity to offer salaries which are lesser than what undergrads make at IIT’s/REC’s. But it happens, I guess in every market!
It has been two days since the process started (Day 0 and Day 1) and the campus has seen misery, elation, surprise, relief, tension and all those emotions that you can think of. All I want to see is all my batch-mates to get placed as soon as possible. I have always maintained that this is just the beginning of our careers and so lets not get bogged down by the upper hand that the companies have when they come down to the campus. These companies want us as badly, if not more, than we want them! (This is by no means a “bhashan now that I have got placed”, but I have always believed that companies will always be under pressure from their management to hire talent from the best b-schools!

On a side note, I was pretty impressed with some of the articles posted by the class of 2009 on their blog. It is good to see some of them having clear views on the things happening around us!

Yet again!

The government’s proposal to have a minimum 25% public shareholding in all listed firms was welcomed from most quarters in the stock market, with analysts suggesting that it will lead to a higher float, more transparency and less chance of manipulative trading and better price discovery.
So it should not come as a surprise that which entity will come out against this. It has to the communist party of India.

“It is a manipulative work of the finance ministry to encourage privatization. We will oppose it” Quote-unquote D. Raja, national secretary, CPI.
They are “concerned” that this is a way of the government circumventing one of the CMP points of government maintaining 51% stake in the PSU’s. This comes into picture because the top 5 listed firms in terms of least amount of public holding are all PSU’s. (Hindustan copper, NMDC, HMT, FACT and MMTC).

“It is not a question of percentages. It’s a question of policy. This will weaken public sector undertakings (PSU’s) and make them vulnerable to creeping privatization,” claimed Raja

Weaken? Well, I was just wondering, how can you make organizations like HMT and FACT any more “vulnerable” as they have already been identified as “Sick” organizations?
A classic case of agency problem at work? After all, the “public” shareholding pattern in these companies is miniscule!

Whose interests are they trying to protect here, now?!!