This is in stark contrast to western counterparts’ and regulators’ efforts to rein in investment banks’ extravagant bonus culture, widely blamed for encouraging the excessive risk-taking that paved the way for the global financial turmoil.
However, Nomura considers it as a crucial step towards integrating its conventionally run Japanese operations with those of the European and Asian parts of Lehman, which it bought after the Wall Street bank’s collapse, by spending more than $600 million on retention bonuses for its ex-staff in October 2008. Since then, it tried to shed its conservative image and continued to expand its international operations aggressively by recruiting teams of bankers from rivals in Europe and the US.
According to the bank’s sources, as part of its plans to break into the top league of global investment banks, in the near future, it will announce 14 new hiring’s for its prime brokerage business.
Contrary to the expectations of some analysts, Mr. Watanabe and other Nomura bankers believe that the bank would be profitable this year compared to 2008, during which it made a record Y709 billion loss, mainly due to toxic assets and costs associated with the Lehman acquisition.
