Mingchun Sun becomes head of China equity research at Nomura

Mingchun Sun has been appointed head of China equity research at Nomura, the Japanese bank announced yesterday. In this newly created role, Sun, who is also the bank's chief China economist, will work with analysts in Hong Kong and Shanghai to coordinate Nomura's economic, strategic and sectoral China research.

"Mingchun's unique professional background and research experience makes him a natural leader for Nomura's research effort on China," said Hua He, the bank's head of equity and fixed-income research for Asia ex-Japan. "His often timely, yet standout calls have earned strong recognition among our Chinese clients and policymakers. He will play an instrumental role in enhancing our China research capabilities as part of Nomura's strategy to build a top equity house in Asia-Pacific."

Sun's top calls include predicting China's economic downturn and the problems of overcapacity in late 2007. And on the upside, in late 2008 he forecast China's V-shaped recovery. After his call, China's GDP growth bottomed out in the first quarter of this year and has been coming back strongly since March.

Sun became Nomura's chief China economist in October last year. Before that he was the China economist at Lehman Brothers. Prior to starting his banking career, he worked at the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, where he published a book on the renminbi exchange rate and 50 articles in a range of academic journals. He has a PhD in management science and engineering from Stanford University.