Lunchtime Links: Maybe Nomura needs to cut 4,000 more people

Although our sources at Nomura in London say everyone's perfectly happy there and there certainly won't be an exodus after Lehman guarantees are paid, Reuters seems to think differently. In an article today, it cites one London-based Nomura employee who says, "The mood within the office is very bad." Worse still, Reuters has also extracted a quote from an unnamed analyst who estimates current headcount at Nomura at 26,000 and says this needs to fall to 22,000 very soon. Nomura made a $3.8bn net loss between October and December last year, while compensation costs soared 84%.

$8m retention bonus for Citi's real estate boss (Business Insider).

Citigroup hasn't marked down commercial real estate at all (Business Insider).

Merrill Lynch: a list of the departed. (Wall Street Journal)

New structured finance firm, Pearl Capital. (Financial News)

Barclays' tax business takes a dive. (Guardian)

FSA says all is well at Barclays. (Telegraph)

Bonuses down 60% for Natixis traders. (Bloomberg)

SocGen cutting 10% of Asian private banking staff. (Wall Street Journal)

Ben Bernanke is poor. (Kathy Lien)

Citigroup is laying off 65 members of its cleaning staff. (Dealbreaker)

Class War website overwhelmed by warriors. (Class War)

"This crisis was caused by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing." (Business Insider)

Possible nudity outside the Bank of England on Wednesday. (The Times)