Nomura Global Markets Reputation/Life Style/Exit Opps
Received an offer for SA. Was wondering if anyone who has worked at Nomura wants to share their experience in terms of culture/ lifestyle/ comp? The offer for SA was actually quite high so would like to know what first-year bonuses would be like as well.
And does anyone have any tips on choosing the rotations for SA? I see that SAs can rotate through sales and trading, CFS, and the private side. What should I think about when choosing a desk?
I have never worked at Nomura but was a client of theirs when I was on the buyside, and currently on the sell side so compete with them and see the deals that are involved in. I have always been in fixed income so can't speak to their equity business.
1. Culture/lifestyle/Comp: Most of the people I worked with were very nice, knowledgeable and I enjoyed working with them. Never had any issues with them at all and enjoyed the social stuff we did with them. Not sure on comp but people seem to enjoy working there. I left the buyside in 2014 and it is still a lot of the same people over there.
2. Nomura is very active in RMBS both agency and non-agency. I have also heard their macro business is pretty good (rates, FX) but I have never traded much in those spaces so I'm not 100% sure. Nomura also does some structured credit (CMBS, CLOs, ABS, etc.) but not as active as RMBS. I'm sure they trade IG/HY but you don't see them on a ton of deals in the US so I'm not sure what they are doing there. In terms of choosing a rotation you should aim to work with people you like and a product you think is interesting. If you see a lot of Associates or VPs that have started there as analysts and worked their way up that is good, as it shows that they are committed to developing people internally and not just hiring a bunch of analysts to do the grunt work and letting them go after their analyst stint.
3. Exits: The better reputation the desk has with the buyside the more opportunities to exit. So if you know people who are at a buyside fund you would want to work at who worked there I would see what desk they were on and maybe network with them. That being said, focus on the desk where you like the people and the product first and the exits will work themselves out if you desire.
Thank you so much for the info! This is very very helpful. I saw that many people at the global markets team has made VP from summer analysts so it definitely seems like a place ppl would like to stay. Could I ask why you decided to leave the buy-side for the sell-side?
The place I worked did not pay very well and was very slow moving. It was a great place to learn and to meet people but it was not fit for my personality. There are a lot of buyside places like this that are not that hard to get jobs at where you can learn a ton without working very hard and meet a lot of people. Its much easier to get the job you want in the markets business once you have some relevant experience.
I think what you should worry about more is getting a return. Nomura is known to not give a lot of return offers for S&T. Start hedging your risk by getting your full time networking started by your internship.
What have been the historical return offer rates u think?
Talked to quite some people in the trading at different banks, surprised to find that Nomura has an utterly different reputation within this field, compared to its name in IB.
Basically considering its size is generally smaller than other major banks in the US, Nomura's trading business is quite respectable. It seems that their business is expanding and have some strong desks (Fixed especially). Great culture and opportunities, as it can tell by very low turnover. (opposite to IB)
Um. I see that you are prolly gonna intern there based on ur comments. I think yes the business is lean and they have found their spots but the trading division is definitely not growing. I think you will find out next summer.
thanks for sharing. Yeah will be back to share updates when hit on the desk.
Any updates? I just applied and am hoping to learn more.
Business Side: As far as what I’ve seen, they’re trying to grow their trading business and already have made some progress. They pulled in some seniors from other shops on the street and junior class has expanded a lot, across on both equity and fixed-income side.
Product Side: Their products are lean and usually the more complex the product, the better their performance on it, as their limited balance sheet won’t be that supportive of competing on vanilla products with other BBs. That being said, they're good at some niche / complex areas areas but downside of that will be the lack of presence on many products you'll see on other banks.
Internship experience really varies by desk. Most people were nice and easygoing, but some senior folks were hard to approach. Personally I’m not a big fan of rotations, 3 weeks on each desk was an awkward length for both the intern and the desk.
This is a great, even-handed take for the most part. I would say they are only in products that they are sort of competitive in, which is very few products. So basically, they have decent-sized securitized products, rates, and equity derivs trading operations, but aside from that, they aren't really strong in other products. For example, they have no presence in credit (IG, HY, distressed and, etc) and FX in the Americas, which are very large and standard asset classes all BBs trade. So, from a trading junior perspective, your options are very, very, very limited because there are so few viable and interesting products to trade there compared to JPM, for example. So if you don't get placed into one of those teams, your career is a little bit derailed, and that's a real risk because many of their other teams are pretty small and weak relative to others on the street.
Also, depending on the teams, the culture there is sometimes weirdly political, and work-life balance is non-existent for many of the structuring groups. Surprisingly, people do not want to mentor you. Compared to other banks, the differences in culture are night and day, to be honest. But in this environment, it makes sense to take the offer but be wary. Generally, they do not care about juniors, and people feel threatened if you are too competent or, even worse, happy at work, I feel. Strong franchises and good managers, in general, usually want the best juniors, but many people there see new ideas and people as threatening to their job security. this is what happens when a franchise does not make that much money; it stagnates and employees gatekeep and fight over scraps. Some seniors and even juniors want you to suffer a bit to bring you down to their level. As another poster said, most of the rainmakers in all the core products they trade (e.g. desk heads) have left, and people they get from other banks generally aren't the best. One benefit, however, is they promote slightly faster than other banks, where you save maybe eight months, and their pay and benefits are decent. Still, the drawback is that their costs are literally 99% of their revenues in the Americas imao, so the profitability and longevity of this franchise are I think questionable. They probably promote people faster cus they have problems retaining juniors or people of any level due to lack of brand and support and how overworked people are due to sometimes shit culture and leaner teams. There are some people who have stayed with the firm from intern to MD but think about it, doing that is like being the world's tallest dwarf; you get paid less, and you work for a shitty firm.
Advice for you interning is to really feel out which teams actually care about juniors (can't think of any in particular to be honest) and compete for these teams. As a junior, you deserve to be or at least ideally should be in a place where they are winning or at least believe they can win; Nomura is neither of these things. Aside from little bright spots, its US business is like a perpetually unprofitable 10-15-year-old startup struggling to get more market share; this is a lethal weakness in a markets business where scale is everything. If you could go to another larger platform, you should honestly try hard to do so, given the lack of flexibility (high chance, ~70-80%, that if u return, you get placed onto a shit team or sth you don't want because they don't have scale in most teams and need bodies in their "newest venture," which would be like some two-three person sweatshop team in an extremely niche product), but it's better than nothing.
I’m pretty sure all their money makers went to Verition
What's comp like for Nomura S&T? Much less than BBs or just negligible?
There are lots of things wrong with this business, but pay is not one of them if you suffer. The worse the culture of the team and hours, the more you get paid. But it's not worth it because they have people working morning to midnight and beyond in structuring.
Thanks for the supplement above, and I much agree with the poster on pros and cons of the opportunities at the firm.
The overall strategy the firm has in these two year is to increase its scale, but to be honest I’m a little bit doubtful if the actual revenue growth can keep pace with their hiring speed. If not, then two years later there will be a hard time for new hired analyst/associates for sure. Some teams have quite high turnovers on junior level, and nightmare-like WLB was part of the reasons. Other reasons included that few seniors were willing for product teach-in.
It’s about trade off eventually I feel, as its boutique style structure has the pros of more responsibilities to take (quicker promotion) and cons of less organized and structured when it comes to decision making and learning. I learned a lot over the internship but had to admit that the probability of being placed into a team with good culture and real potential to grow is quite slim. I think a scaled platform with more mature product lines and training system are more beneficial to new grads.
Glad you agree. For example, at BBs, there are formal product teach-ins (with slide decks and all) with seniors, and I did not see any formal teach-ins at this bank. The most significant risk for someone who doesn't necessarily want to be a career sell-side person is that the chances of being placed onto a team at this bank in a group that can lead to a buy-side exit are exceptionally slim. There's a slew of random teams specialized in niche products only for specific clients, and the niche skillset and lack of brand leads to very little flexibility later on. But still i think people should make the most of it in this recruiting environment.
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