In the 18 months since Nomura grabbed with both hands the opportunity presented by a bankrupt Lehman Brothers, it has gone a long way to transforming itself from a Japanese securities powerhouse to a nascent global investment bank.
In Europe alone it has added 950 staff to those it acquired from Lehman. The appointment of a non-Japanese executive, ex-Lehman banker Jesse Bhattal, to the bank's executive board and as head of Nomura's wholesale business is little short of a revolution at a Japanese bank, as is the migration of about 70% of its Japanese staff to Western-style work contracts.
