Nomura, Japan's largest brokerage by market value, has hired senior banking analyst Lucy Feng for its China equity research team in an effort to strengthen its coverage of the world's fastest growing economy.
Feng has been appointed as co-head of regional banks research for Asia ex-Japan and will primarily cover China banks. She will partner with Paul Shulte, who co-heads the regional banks team, Nomura said in a statement.
Feng joins Nomura from Deutsche Bank where she was co-head of regional financials research for Asia ex-Japan and head of Greater China financials research. Prior to that, she worked for Lehman Brothers and UBS as a China banks analyst. She has also worked in the corporate finance division at Goldman Sachs.
Nomura has been expanding aggressively overseas after buying the European and Asian operations of failed US investment bank Lehman Brothers. The bank said it will continue to increase the headcount in its Hong Kong-based China market research team, which currently has over 20 analysts.
"We continue to attract top talent to our research teams to strengthen our offering to clients. We are pleased to welcome Lucy who brings extensive experience focusing on China," Hua He, Nomura's head of equity and fixed-income research for Asia ex-Japan, said in a statement.
Feng is taking the place of May Yan, who has transferred to the firm's China macroeconomic research team. Yan too is a senior banking analyst who joined Nomura from Moody's Investors Service in Hong Kong.
Nomura announced yesterday that improved commissions from Japanese companies raising capital in the stock market helped it record a net profit of ¥10.2 billion ($112 million) for the three months ended December 31. This compares with a loss of ¥342.9 billion in the same quarter a year earlier when the company saw its staff costs soar after acquiring Lehman which had 3,000 employees in Asia.
Nomura's analysts cover 1,128 stocks across Asia-Pacific, which it claims makes it number one in terms of Pan-Asia research coverage.
