Late Lunchtime Links: A nasty new bonus reality dawns at Nomura

Back in 2009, everyone was quite happy to work at Nomura. Not many other banks were hiring and it was paying generous two year guarantees at pre-crisis levels to the senior people it hired from Lehman. Now those guarantees have lapsed. And other banks are back in the market.

Nomura is therefore likely to find itself in a quandary over this year's bonus round, particularly in Europe. Its third quarter results, released today, reveal that for the nine months to December 2010 it made a 23bn yen loss (vs. a 140bn yen profit for the same period last year). In the third quarter alone, profit in the division was down 78% compared to the third quarter of 2009/2010.

The American market remains Nomura's favourite focus. Jesse Bhattal, president and chief executive of Nomura's global wholesale division, said the company's global expansion, "continues to gather momentum." US headcount has risen from 650 to around 1,900 iover the past two years.

(Nomura has asked us to point out that, compared to other banks, it actually did fairly well in the past quarter - in fixed income, for example, q-o-q revenues were down just 8%.)

What with rising compensation costs fuelled by all that US hiring, the outlook for bonuses in London is surely not good. Either Nomura needs to massively ramp up revenues, or it needs to cut pay and headcount. In the absence of the former, a decision will have to be taken soon.

Morgan Stanley wants to increase its share of fixed income trading by 2% this year . (Bloomberg)

Revenues up 53% in Lazard's M&A business. (Wall Street Journal)

No cash bonuses for senior staff at Greenhill . (Wall Street Journal)

Total compensation at Wall Street is up 5.7%. (Wall Street Journal)

Is investment banking useful to a start-up career? (Quora)

The FSA's budget is up 10% on last year. (Telegraph)

Christian Littlewood imprisoned for three years four months. (Guardian)

How Christian Littlewood perpetrated his insider trades. (Telegraph)

Guy Hands: 'Securitisation is the crack cocaine of financial services.' (Guardian)

No bank will ever take a risk on Guy Hands again. (Guardian)

Allegis acquires Aston Carter. (Financial Times)

How stress contributes to Alzheimers. (Scientific American)

Smoking is an impediment to a career in banking. (Dealbreaker)