Bad omen for Nomura bankers

I think that certain quarters of Lehman do display unacceptable arrogance and that we (ex-Lehman) have a lot to learn from Far Eastern culture - humility, deference, respect, etc. It was, afterall, the arrogance in certain parts of the bank that brought it down - no question at all about that. I imagine that the greater an individual's arrogance, the greater the likelihood of his / her departure post March '09 and the fewer of those guys on board the smaller the chance of a repetition of the behaviour that has resulted in this crisis.

The Nomura acquisition of parts of Lehman was a brave move and there are many here at ex-Lehman that respect that and are doing their utmost to make the new venture succeed.

It is understandable to an extent that there is an anti-Lehman concensus. However it is important to note that the Equities and Investment Banking divisions, that were taken over by Nomura, were neither responsible for bringing the bank to its knees, nor the global banking crisis, and associated losses. These were both profitable areas of the business and were market leading in terms of product, people and technology, which is why their value was bought by Nomura. As for compensation packages, the guarantees are not across the board and none are longer than 1 year.

If it is true Nomura made only 10% of what LB was making a day - as someone suggested in a previous post - perhaps that is because Nomura was never in the business of selling absolute crap to clients without any scrupules in the first place. In many parts of the world you'd better not even whisper you're ex-Lehman, or else bereft and desperate clients, mini-bond victims and other people who saw their lifelong savings disappear thanks to these overleveraged cowboys, will go at your throat. At least 'old' Nomura could look its clients straight in the eyes and the much ridiculed conservativeness of Japanese financials was gaining more sympathy throughout a world, that is increasingly fed up with US investment banks' style and talent to screw things up. That said and given the very generous lifeline provided to them in times of massive layoffs, these guys could at least show some appreciation and acknowledge that LB never even came close to Nomura's traditional stronghold in Japanese equities. It's a shame they're allowed to hand out their new cards carrying Nomura's name, while boasting still how they did everything so much better at Lehman. Who got bust in the first place?

I think the Lehman guys had nowhere to go and the Nomura deal was a godsend. They were way overpaid for where they were and could have been brought on board for probably a quarter of what they have got and still been grateful to their new masters.

I know of some very ordinary fixed income guys working in Emerging markets that have gone from Lehman to Nomura, hope they're not getting a guaranteed payout.