Four Nomura Investment Bankers Said to Leave as Firm Shrinks

(Bloomberg) -- Four Nomura Holdings Inc. investment bankers, each managing directors covering major industries, were among 17 employees who left voluntarily since the Japanese bank cut pay and personnel in the Americas, according to people with knowledge of the moves.

Jason Fertig, who led Nomura’s health-care investment-banking group in the Americas, and Matthew Upton, a banker in the firm’s global-technology team, are joining Mizuho Financial Group Inc., the people said, asking not to be identified discussing personnel matters. Colin Cropper, head of the Americas automotive franchise, is joining Royal Bank of Canada, and Gregg Fatzinger, head of consumer retail for the Americas, also departed, according to the people.

Nomura is among non-U.S. banks that shrank their North American workforces amid a Wall Street trading slump. Dozens of investment-banking personnel were dismissed in April cuts that targeted about 30 percent of employees in the unit, the people said. Those who remained were said to be angered by compensation declines of as much as 70 percent. The firm, which is aiming for $700 million in expense savings to stem years of losses outside Japan, is now seeking to hire selectively to boost fees from cross-border mergers of midsize companies.

The April cuts winnowed a business with about 225 employees to 150 workers, according to the people. That led to voluntary departures, including Farooq Abbasi, an executive director who is joining Mizuho to work on cross-border mergers. Abbasi’s LinkedIn profile shows he started at Mizuho this month.

Fertig, who spent almost four years at Nomura, has previously worked at Barclays Plc and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., according to his LinkedIn profile. Upton joined Nomura in 2010, and had previously worked at Bank of America Corp., according to his profile. Cropper was at Nomura since 2009, and was previously a vice president at Lehman, his profile shows. Fatzinger joined Nomura from Credit Suisse Group AG in 2010, where he handled coverage for U.S. packaged-food, beverage, tobacco and agribusiness firms, according to a memo sent at the time.

Upton and Cropper declined to comment, and Fertig and Fatzinger didn’t return messages. Jonathan Hodgkinson, a spokesman for Tokyo-based Nomura, declined to comment. Officials at RBC and Mizuho didn’t have an immediate comment.

To contact the reporters on this story: Hugh Son in New York at hson1@bloomberg.net, Kiel Porter in New York at kporter17@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Eichenbaum at peichenbaum@bloomberg.net, Steve Dickson

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