PUNE, INDIA: It has happened again. The subprime jitters were not the last that we could hear of the crisis that's swimming across the US and from there to other global nooks. The news of American financial behemoth Lehman Brothers' move to file a petition under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code has sent another wave of anxiety, concern and speculations in terms of its impact to India.

While the firm has avowed of its pursuit for the sale of its broker-dealer operations, as well as its investment management division, the inability of finding a suitable partner that could help it ashore after losses in billions in the US mortgage markets has sent a downward spiral across the world.

Majority of the world's stock markets have already lived the fears in reality as they nose-dived after the news trickled in, including Indian Sensex and Nifty. IT stocks, too have been battered to some extent.

The ripples, however, of this group's debacle that is reported to have suffered a third quarter net loss of $3.9 billion (£2.2bn) after a $7bn (£3.9bn) hit from commercial property and sub-prime mortgage losses, could be far and beyond.

Already much has been surmised in areas like effect on high-tier recruitments from campuses like IIMs, and the effect on capital flows for the Indian market.

And there could be more.

The implications of this news could be a lot for Indian outsourcing vendors that are already struggling on account of their exposure to US financial sector, more so after more headlines keep coming from other financial giants like Merrill Lynch and AIG.

Merrill Lynch, another major investment bank, is in the process of being bought out by Bank of America.

AIG, a major insurance giant that too is undergoing severe liquidity crisis and working on a bailout, could be another serious threat to global financial stability if it doesn't find a lifeline soon.

Large vendors like Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Wipro Technologies, Satyam Computers, Infosys Technologies and HCL Technologies, supposedly have Lehman and Merrill as their customers. However, they deny any major revenue impact of the recent crisis in the statements that have come up in media.

Analysts, however, see the situation differently and conjecture that IT spends will be impacted more so, when Indian vendors cumulatively earn about $300 million in annual revenues from Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.

It has also been pointed out that Indian vendors could be impacted both in terms of IT spends as well as the US customer decision-making process. The Indian IT industry notably earned about a third of its revenues from the financial services.

Then there are stakes that Lehman had via investments in some companies. According to reports, through its various arms, Lehman holds more than 1 per cent equity stake in 18 listed Indian companies and the total value of investments in these 18 companies added up to Rs 548 crore.

While majority of them are into real-estate, infrastructure and hospitality, as per the last updates in media, Lehman's PE investments also included, $12.5 million stake reported in Peninsula IT park in 2008, and $15 million (2005) in Cellebrum Technologies. The extent of actual stake cannot be ascertained so far.

Also, of interest would be the action and interest that the captive operations of Lehman, Merrill Lynch and AIG would generate in India where we have seen captive-sell-outs as another major trend recently.

Just how attractive can these be financially and strategically to any Indian player at this point of time remains to be seen. And so are the effects that Lehman's bust that could yet spill over.