Mumbai: While most of the prominent B-schools in India are anticipating a low number of job offers this academic year due to global economy slowdown, Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) expect a 25 percent to 50 percent increase in pre-placement offers, reported Business Standard.

IIM's placement starts from every July and winds up in February. IIM got offers from prominent investment banks and consulting firms this year till now and expects more big offers to come.

For instance, IIM-Kolkata has received 33 pre-placement offers (PPO) so far that include 15 international offers and it is expected that the number would grow by 25 percent when compared with the rate of last year, which was 90. IIM-K got offers from renowned global consulting firms such as McKinsey & Co, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, J P Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Barclays Bank.

Moreover, IIM-Indore has received 21 PPOs so far and the total number is expected to rise by 50 percent over last year when the PPOs number was around 63. A placement committee member at IIM Indore said "The 2009 batch, which underwent summer internship this year, is more experienced than the previous batch."

IIM-Kozhikode, got 17 PPOs so far and and expects the offers to go up to around 90 this year. Consumer goods companies like HUL, Coke and ITC, and financial firms like Citibank and JP Morgan have already committed themselves to the institute.

"Even if the PPOs remain at the same level as last year, we would be happy. Considering that most international recruiters are from the banking and financial sectors (hit by the US sub-prime crisis), we do not expect an enthusiastic response even at the final placement stage," said a prominent IIM official.

Additionally, as Banking and financial services sector is not expected to be the best performer on campus most of the IIMs have decided to invite more diverse firms like smaller private equity players and wealth management firms to the campus.