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Non-Tech : ICICI Ltd - (Nyse: IC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (310)	3/3/2000 7:31:00 PM
From: Labrador	Respond to of 494

Too bad ICICI BANK not mentioned. Trouble for the dinosaurs From Forbes Global forbes.com Lethargic state-owned banks control over 90% of India's banking assets. Their extensive branch networks reach right down to the villages. These banks are dinosaurs, big but sluggish. The biggest, the State Bank of India, with $52 billion in assets, has computerized fewer than a quarter of its 9,000 branches. Transactions are still entered by hand on giant ledgers, which are carried around by couriers. By comparison, international banks operating in India offer excellent, up-to-date service, but they find themselves hampered by regulatory constraints on expansion. As a result, their customer base is restricted to well-heeled city dwellers. Occupying the niche in between the dinosaurs and the international banks are a clutch of nimble, technology-savvy, privately owned Indian banks that sprang up five years ago when the government began to issue banking licenses to private groups. The best of the bunch: HDFC Bank (Bombay: HDFCB). With an asset base of $1.5 billion and a return on equity of 26%, it is India's largest and most profitable privately owned bank. "HDFC Bank has all the advantages of a foreign bank--high technology, low manpower--with none of the constraints," says Samir Arora, the head of Asian emerging markets at Alliance Capital Singapore. The bank has built a franchise, both on the wholesale and retail side, by targeting top-rung customers of state banks who are happy to pay for such value-added services as phone and Internet banking. Run by an all-Indian management team led by Aditya Puri, a former Citibanker, HDFC Bank is backed by the Housing Development Finance Corp., India's largest home mortgage company; it owns 29% of the bank's equity. Indian Ocean Chase Capital Advisors, the Indian affiliate of Chase Capital Partners, owns another 15%. Tabassum Inamdar, an India banking analyst at the brokerage firm of Jardine Fleming India, feels that HDFC Bank is well positioned to benefit from India's economic turnaround. She predicts 25% credit growth for the bank over the next two years, as new infrastructure projects get off the ground and demand for working capital loans picks up. Trading at $5.30 a share, its stock has doubled since last November, when it announced the acquisition of Times Bank from Bennett Coleman, a media conglomerate. Sandeep Dixit, a banking analyst at Indosuez W.I. Carr Securities, estimates that next year will bring a postmerger return on equity of 32%. Despite the recent price runup, Inamdar believes the stock offers a further 50% upside over the next 12 months. -Naazneen Karmali

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (310)	3/3/2000 10:57:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 494

Indian Institutes of Management pitch AC tents on football fields to tackle mob of recruiters Our Correspondents FROM THE IIM CAMPUSES Our Correspondents LOUIS Kahn's celebrated buildings are no longer able to cope with the annual placement stampede at IIM Ahmedabad. The institute has pitched air-conditioned tents on its football field to accommodate the rush of corporate executives this season. Over 90 companies have been packed into 4 days of placement this year and with some companies sending as many as 15 selectors to campus, the IIMA has decided they can no longer be accommodated indoors. Says Sidhdhartha Sawhney, student member of the IIMA placement committee: "This year, the logistics required it. There are many more top companies that deserved first day status and many of them have a larger number of interview panels running simultaneously." Placement interviews at the IIMA began on Wednesday and 15 companies were slotted on the zero day, three times the norm of yesteryears. Old-timers Mckinsey & Co and Boston Consulting Group have expanded their recruitment process by sending down 15 panellists this year and newcomer Goldman Sachs, also a zero-day company, has sent seven. And the salaries are soaring even higher than the mercury levels the AC tents are fighting against, with packages big enough to cause even a GM in an MNC FMCG company serious heartburn. Venture cap firm Indocean Chase* has apparently made two offers at Rs 25 lakh, inclusive of bonus. But only one guy seems to have accepted. Said one high-stakes Indian recruiter, "This is mad. But what do we do? And even if do get people for less, they'll go abroad after we've trained them for two years."* Or, not surprisingly, talent hungry, fast growing firms like ICICI are putting up a brave front, dishing out goodies like a Rs 1 lakh signing bonus. Which of course pales in comparison to the $100,000 plus salaries being offered at IIM-Calcultta. There the Mitchell Madison Group and Lehman Brothers have coughed up the highest annual dollar salary of $130,000 to as many as six students. Overseas firms such as Lehman, Mitchell Madison, Boston Consulting Group, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, JP Morgan, Exeter and Deutsche Bank Global Markets made as many as 70 recruitment offers. The average dollar salary at IIMC this year is being pegged at $83,000. GE Caps has racked up the highest rupee offer of Rs 11.5 lakh. The overall average of domestic and foreign companies is being placed at Rs 12.5 lakh per annum. Back in Ahmedabad, the demand for interview rooms has shot up to 70, a number the institute is not equipped to cope with. Rues one senior professor, "It's all in the student's hands, but in the past, we would never have allowed this sort of thing." For those not involved in placement however, the isolation of placements from the daily routine seems a blessing. Says one faculty member, "It's a big relief. Otherwise there's just too much clutter within the institute during placement." And since companies are willing to go to any length or distance, it's fine. Says Indira Parikh, faculty chairperson of the placement committee, "Companies coming for placement are required to pay a fee and that more than takes care of such expenses.? -Economic Times