Turbulent Lehman Brothers to affect Indian IT-BPO

New Delhi: With the tentacles of Lehman Brothers fiasco unfolding on the Indian software companies, the industry body Nasscom today said, there would be short term and company specific impact.
Stating that the Indian IT-BPO sector is a part of the global financial system that has seen a lot of turbulence in the recent past, the apex body said, "Our preliminary analysis of the current situation indicates that the impact will be short term and company specific; we will continue to keep a watch on any further downstream impacts."
With nearly half of their revenues coming from banking and financial services segments, India's top software exporters are closely monitoring the financial crisis spreading across markets.
While Infosys and TCS, the country's two largest IT firms, said they do not comment on individual clients, the third largest IT firm in the country, Wipro said it was in dialogue with failed Lehman Brothers, although revenues from it were modest.
The fourth largest software exporter from the country Satyam also said that it was "concerned" over the developments in the US. HCL Technologies, however, said that the two US majors, Lehman and Merrill Lynch, were not its clients and therefore, would not adversely affect the company.
When one puts all of this together, there is some loss but given that most of the top 5 companies have over 40-45 per cent exposure to BFSI space, then mood is worried and concerned right now, said an analyst.

Source: www.mid-day.com

HSBC MF files an offer document with Sebi

HSBC Mutual Fund files an offer document with Sebi to launch HSBC Long Term Strategic Bond Fund. It is a 3-year close-ended debt scheme. The investment objective of the scheme is to provide reasonable income through a diversified portfolio of fixed income securities. HSBC Long Term Strategic Bond Fund offers regular and institutional option. The scheme has two sub-options dividend and growth option. Dividend option further offers dividend reinvestment and payout facility. Dividend shall be declared on a quarterly basis under dividend option for both the options i.e. regular and institutional option.

Indian BPO boom seems to be over

For the first time the BPOs in India are conducting large-scale lay offs and the industry agrees that with the US economy slowing down India''s call centre boom may finally be over.Gurgaon''s call centres have for years been the first choice of college graduates, who don''t mind odd hours, in exchange for quick money. But now the dream run is being replaced by a reality check. Rajeev, a Senior Customer Care Executive at Convergys has worked at five different call centres in the last seven years. He''s looking for a change again, but this time not out of choice. Rajeev is one of the 450 employees fired in the last two weeks by a Gurgaon BPO called 24/7 Customers. Reason being that this UK-based mobile phone company has decided to cut back its India operations.In a written statement, the company said that all affected employees have been provided the option of continuing at other centres like Hyderabad and Bangalore. For those who do not wish to relocate, the company would assist in finding job with other call centres.But that isn''t reassuring for an industry where job security has always been taken for granted. Umar, a team Leader at 24/7 Customer, I need to feed my family, that is the most important thing. People are ready to relocate to Hyderabad, but they are rejecting people like anything. The orange crisis has led to lay offs at two other Call Centres, Convergys and EXL services. And this comes after 400 people were let go last month by another BPO giant, Keane India, after a merger and a scaling down of size.

Commodity exchanges Q1 turnover sees 24pc growth

The Government measures such as prohibition on futures trading in four commodities soya oil, potato, rubber and channa in May and mark up in transaction cost seems to have not impacted trading. Turnover in 22 commodity exchanges increased 68 per cent to Rs 2.22 lakh crore in the fortnight ended June 30, against Rs 1.31 lakh recorded in the same period last year, according to data released by the market regulator Forward Markets Commission (FMC). For the first quarter ended June 30, turnover of the 22 exchanges increased 24 per cent to Rs 11.15 lakh crore. The three national commodity exchanges Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd (MCX), National Commodity & Derivative Exchange Ltd (NCDEX) and National Multi Commodity Exchange (NMCE) contributed Rs 2.19 lakh crore, about 99 per cent of the total turnover of the 22 exchanges.