How unstable is Nomura?
As we predicted earlier this week, Christian Meissner is leaving Nomura and joining Bank of America.
This is obviously bad for Nomura. The bank, which has been endeavouring to build its European business, has already lost several investment bankers to Credit Suisse, and could do without losing another one, particularly not someone as senior as Christian Meissner, who was a key figure at Lehman and whose arrival at the US bank from Goldman was seen as something as a coup in 2004.
Vereker and Mee are the keys
However, despite Meissner's departure for BofA, and Nomura's relatively poor showing in the M&A league tables (it ranked 12th and 15th for deals completed in the first quarter according to Thomson Financial, down from 11th and 13th in Lehman's heyday of 2006), headhunters say there probably won't be a big rush out of Nomura.
"Meissner's gone, but William Vereker's taken over," says one senior M&A headhunter. "He's been promoted to joint global head of the investment bank, and Adrian Mee is still head of M&A.
"Vereker is incredibly well respected. It would be a real issue if he left, but as long as he and Mee stay, the fallout will be minimised," he adds.
Separately, another M&A recruiter says junior M&A staff at Nomura are generally quite happy, having mostly been paid above the market.
"They have pretty lean teams, and deal flow is picking up, Nomura is a good place to be," he says. "The only problem is the instability of senior people - it's a bit of a gamble whether they'll leave and the track record isn't there compared to a JPMorgan or Goldman Sachs."
