News makers:

NDTV, which is on the brink of floating an initial public offer, is learnt to have lined up attractive stock options for key employees. However, the media industry has been abuzz with rumours of the impending departure of several NDTV personnel.

The new venture, christened Network One, will be floated by Ms. Shirin, Mr. Sharad Sharma and Mr. Arup Ghosh, who will be joined by another former NDTV staffer, Mr. Shishir Joshi, as the chief of the Mumbai bureau.

Network One will be headquartered in Delhi and have a Mumbai bureau to start with. The company will concentrate on current affairs, business and infotech programs. Mr. Sharad Sharma will be chief executive officer and managing director and both Ms. Shireen and Mr. Arup Ghosh will be directors. The mission of the three stars to go on their own would be "realise their dreams in a growing industry as entrepreneurs".

While the new venture will not be tied with any one channel, the promoters are planning to approach several TV channels for possible investment in the new venture.

11 September 2000

Churning at the investment banking firm Morgan Stanley
New York: Ms. Lisa Polsky, a pioneer in the area of risk management and currently head of risk management at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, has left the investment banking firm to join rivals Merill Lynch.

At Merill Lynch she will oversee lending services to leveraged fund clients, such as hedge funds, as part of her duties as head of the client services group in Merrill's newly expanded securities services division.

Ms. Polsky, who has extensive contacts in the hedge fund industry, brings years of risk management expertise to the job. She worked at Bankers Trust in the early 1990s, which was regarded as the laboratory for derivatives, and she is known as one of the first people to bring a computer on to the trading floor to calculate options values.

The hiring, which comes amid a broader restructuring of Merill's hedge fund business, signals Merrill's intention to compete more aggressively with Bear Stearns and Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, the two firms that currently dominate the lucrative clearing and prime brokerage business on Wall Street.