Land of the brave

12 January 2010 By John Foley Follow @johnsfoley

The Japanese brokerage is sending its top Asian banker to New York to build up its U.S. corporate finance operations. Yet building a U.S. franchise from scratch looks an expensive gamble. And the European and Asian bits that Nomura bought from Lehman are only halfcooked.

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Nomura Holdings appointed Glenn Schiffman as head of investment banking in the Americas, based in New York. Schiffman was previously head of investment banking for Asia excluding Japan. He also headed Lehman Brothers' investment banking business in Asia before the Wall Street bank's Asian and European business were bought by Nomura in 2008.

Japan's biggest brokerage firm has been hiring staff for its U.S. business after Barclays Capital beat it to Lehman's U.S. assets. Nomura has said it wants 300 corporate finance staff in the United States by the end of its expansion phase, compared with 23 at the end of November.

Nomura's shortterm target for its overall U.S. business is to have 1,600 staff by the end of March, including traders and back office staff. That marks a 1,000 increase on the U.S. headcount in March 2008. It has earmarked roughly half of a $5.6 billion equity raising in September for U.S. expansion.

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