Lehman may put its India holdings on the block

With its global losses mounting, within the past month the bank offloaded shares worth Rs 400 crore in several Indian companies, including Amtek Auto, Amtek India, Cranes Software International, NIIT Ltd, Northgate Technologies, Prajay Engineers Syndicate, Fedders Llyod, Masterk, and Triveni Engineering.

“The sell-off was a clear signal that the company was desperate to liquidate its assets and get whatever price it could at that point of time,” says a market analyst. The firm is also learnt to be looking for buyers for its real-estate investment division. In fact, most of its private equity exposure was in the real estate sector, including in firms like Unitech, DLF Assets, Future Capital, DB Realty.

According to CMIE and other sources, Lehman Brothers’ move to file for bankruptcy in New York on Monday wiped out more than Rs 2,000 crore from the market valuation of those Indian companies in which the US financial major had made investments through the stock markets. Agency reports say the bank recorded a loss of more than Rs 50 crore on Monday on its investments in India. Experts say if it had not offloaded its entire stake in these companies, losses on Indian exposure would have been much higher.