Morning Coffee: Bank that closed business wants to do it again, more cheaply. No one works at 4pm now

efinancialcareers.com:

Nomura has a reputation. The bank is forever trying to refute this, but sometimes actions speak larger than words and Nomura's actions tend to have a reinforcing effect. The Japanese bank is known for getting in and out of businesses. Every bank does it, but Nomura possibly more than most, and now it's doing it again.

The latest business getting the Nomura treatment is equities. Having pulled out of equities in 2016 and laid offaround 400 people, Nomura now wants to get back in seven years later. However, it wants to do so without spending so much money and without hiring as many people.

"What we’re looking to establish is a much, much lighter cost-based business, not full service, and we think we can do that with a small headcount,” Simon Yates, Nomura’s global head of equities, told Bloomberg, describing the endeavour as both «surgical» and a «selective reentry.»

 Although it's being particular about who it hires for its headcount-light revivification, Bloomberg reels off a list of 16 people Yates has picked up so far across Europe, the US and Asia, including former Goldman Sachs MD Keyvan Zolfaghari in London. They're not all from Credit Suisse, although Yates is enthusiastic about Credit Suisse people and winning Credit Suisse business. In Europe, the focus seems to be corporate equity derivatives; in Asia, it's the whole deal — cash and derivatives and prime broking. 

Nomura's renewed enthusiasm for a business it had previously sworn off of might be dismissed as just another episode in the bank's history, but it's also a reminder that banking as a whole is a cyclical industry. Times change, unfashionable businesses become popular again, as do the people who work in them. However painful 2023 is for some, things