Nomura MD offers sympathy to new graduate recruits let go last week

It's not just senior traders who were put at risk of redundancy at Nomura last week. Insiders at the Japanese bank say graduates who joined less than a year ago were also among the victims.

"A few graduates who joined us last summer have gone," says one Nomura trader. "If they were part of a business that's being downsized, they were let go irrespective of how good they are. It's been very unfortunate for them."

Nomura declined to comment on the disappointed trainees, but in a post on LinkedIn, Clive Hadingham - Nomura's former head of FX sales for Northern Europe, who was also put at risk last Thursday - offered his sympathy to the unfortunate juniors.

"I’m experienced enough to know how it works but for those who have just joined the graduate program, to get called to an office, given a letter that says ‘you are at risk of redundancy’, escorted off the premises and told your personal belongings will be couriered to you (I’m still waiting for mine) must leave them feeling totally disillusioned with their chosen career path," Hadingham wrote today.

It's not clear how many Nomura juniors were affected by the change in strategy, which has seen Nomura severely curtailing its G10 FX, emerging markets and flow credit businesses in London. As recently as December, the Japanese bank was advertising summer 2019 internships across all its divisions in London. It's not clear what will happen to interns who applied to work on the desks that are closing. 

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