Nomura has hired Wendy Liu as head of its China equity research team as the investment bank strives to build its equities business.
Liu joined the firm last week and will be based in Hong Kong. She will be responsible for managing Nomura’s China equity research product and writing its China strategy research, aligning and coordinating the firm’s research views on the China market.
She will report to Stewart Callaghan, Asia ex-Japan head of equity research, and Zhizhong Yang, the bank's China chairman and chief executive.
“The strength of our China equity research is central to our client-focused research franchise in the region and the appointment of [Liu] will take our China equity research offering to the next level,” said Callaghan in a statement.
“Wendy’s experience and calibre will further strengthen our regional management team as we continue to build our equities product in Asia ex-Japan," added John Adair, Nomura's co-head of equities for Asia-Pacific.
Nomura now has more than 20 analysts covering 220 stocks across 14 sectors in China. Liu has taken the place of Henry Wu, who was appointed to lead China asset management research in mid-2011.
Prior to Nomura, Liu was managing director, head of China research and China strategist at RBS. Before that, she was a senior director and co-head of Asia-Pacific telecom research at Merrill Lynch. She holds an MBA from Columbia University.
Nomura promoted its chief Asia equity strategist Michael Kurtz to global head of equity strategy in March and, in the same month, also named Steve Man as executive director of China auto and auto-parts research.
