Ex-Nomura People, What Made You Leave?
Title. Currently work as a 2nd-Year analyst at a no-name boutique in the South. It's been great (good pay in a low COL city, good culture, deals are small but there's a good amount of deal flow) but I realized that I want to move to a larger platform and saw that Nomura has a decent number of alumni from my school. My concern is that I've been seeing a lot of people leave the firm in the past several months to join "better" banks. Disregarding the memes, is joining a firm like Nomura (or Mizuho/HSBC/SMBC etc.) really that bad? Looking for honest takes from current and former Nomura folks. Thanks in advance.
Talk to your alumni, have the interviews and make it to superday first.
You may or may not like the culture. I personally know a few people at top BB would like to trade firms/groups with you.
HSBC was literally funding terrorists in Middle East and the drug cartels in Mexico….
Based. Which group would you recommend to focus on those activities? LevFin?
How is that a bad thing?
Because the narco terrorists in Mexico would not have been able to operate if it weren’t for HSBC. I get fuck morality in banking but they directly contributed to the tens of thousands to 100k plus deaths in Mexico. That’s really hard to shake in my mind.
They got fired. Nomura keeps hiring and firing
Bump
Bump
Know lot of people who used to work there. Reasons for leaving
-Poor deal flow
-Not so great exit opps. Got to fight much, much harder than your typical BB analyst. That said, there have been analysts in past years that went to solid PE funds like Warburg, Cerberus, KPS, etc.
-Toxic Americas management
-Clueless Japanese management and strategy
-Americans/Japanese cultural frictions
-Nepotism everywhere
-Lower end of Street compensation range
-Lackluster name recognition
And so on.
I should add that those who have worked at Nomura IBD are often poached by top BBs. People have gone everywhere - GS, CVP, LAZ, EVR, JPM, BAML and other top firms.
Regarding both of the above comments, would you say Mizuho is similar?
I think mizuho would be a nice stepping stone for you to get to a better bank.
You'd get to nyc, get exposed to larger deals and get your feet wet dealing with a face time culture.
They do experience quite a bit of turnover at the analyst to vp level however. Specifically, their structured finance group seems to have a revolving door of juniors. For the reasons already mentioned: lower pay, face time culture, unnecessarily intense and sweaty hours, etc.
How's that a nice stepping stone. You're most likely better off going to any of the comparable European banks for similar debt-focused deal flow and fewer cultural/organizational issues.
Well he said he is at a no name bank in the south so I imagine he doesn’t have a ton of offers to pick from.
Holistically speaking, I couldn't imagine a worse place for an analyst to start his/her career than a Nomura or Mizuho etc. Anecdotally from a few friends, they have historically paid less, had higher volatility as it relates to firing folks, and have had poor placement on advisory / capital markets transactions in North America. I know originally at least Nomura got a significant amt of Lehman folks who didn't go with Barcap but even most of them have left at this point
I’m a former Nomura first year analyst who recently moved to a better firm after ~1 year. Don’t want to reveal too many details to protect my identity. Having spent a year there, I advise any prospects to avoid Nomura. They barely close any M&A deals in the US. It was honestly so sad to see all these lackluster MDs and Directors fail to generate any fees.
I’m much happier now that I’m at an EB/MM where there are senior bankers who are genuinely good at their jobs (winning pitches, closing deals) which makes for a much better analyst experience. Regardless of what bank you’re at, you’re doing grunt work as an analyst, but I find comfort in knowing that I’m contributing to something that we’ll win / close. Makes the long hours worth it.
I also didn’t like that I couldn’t form long-lasting connections with anyone at the firm. So many people, both junior and senior, leave for better banks. On top of that, Nomura loves to fire then hire then fire, etc. (a very stupid strategy). As a result, the firm felt like a stepping stone / temporary situation for a lot of people.
P.S. the sushi bar isn't even that good...
They have a sushi bar in nyc?
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