The BPO captives of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG in India had a nervous day on Monday as the parent companies went on a financial turmoil on the Wall Street in downtown Manhattan. Stocks of major Indian IT companies also went south on the BSE.

Whilst Lehman Brothers’ filed for bankruptcy on Monday, the financially distressed Merrill Lynch decided to sell-off its assets to Bank of America which may lead to a consolidation. The Lehman’s bankruptcy filing has put the future of its 700 employees at it’s captive unit in Powaii into uncertainty.

With its bankruptcy, new business may completely stop at its Powaii centre. The exisiting existing employee base at it’s back office unit work on equities research apart from IT maintenance, equities research and fund management. Lehman employs about 3,000 people in Asia Pacific excluding the Indian BPO unit.

The company also outsources to other third party vendors who might be impacted in terms of business. Wipro and TCS are believed to be vendors for Lehman Brothers. A Wipro Technologies spokesperson told ET: “We are in dialogue with Lehman Brothers during this difficult period of uncertainty. Wipro is monitoring the US economic situation closely. Lehman Brothers does not account for a significant portion of our revenue.” Source

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