"RBS is being ripped to shreds," and why people may not want to work for Nomura
When Stephen Hester announced RBS's results last month, he said people were leaving because higher pay was on offer elsewhere.
Headhunters say the departures are accelerating.
"RBS is being ripped to shreds," says one senior FX headhunter. "Nomura, Credit Suisse, BofA Merrill, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche are all taking people out of there. Two senior producers resigned this week for Morgan Stanley and Deutsche."
Earlier this week, Deutsche announced that it had hired a managing director for its German transaction services division from RBS.
The head of a fixed income search firm says Nomura is at the front of the queue for pulling people out of RBS, having poached Steve Ashley and Chris Fleming from there last month.
"Fleming is all over RBS people like a rash," he says. Nomura is rumoured to have hired a couple of Scandinavian salespeople out of the UK bank this week.
Both headhunters point out that Nomura can be a hard sell to salespeople and traders, however. Nomura's bonds are rated BBB+ by Standard & Poor's (RBS's are rated A). This can dissuade counterparties from trading with it.
"Nomura's spending a lot of money persuading people to go there, but when they arrive people are finding that convincing their clients to move isn't always easy," the FX headhunter says.
