Tim Wannenmacher, Nomura’s Hong Kong-based global head of prime services, has sensationally left the bank just days after outlining aggressive growth plans fo
Tim Wannenmacher, Nomura’s Hong Kong-based global head of prime services, has sensationally left the bank just days after outlining aggressive growth plans for the firm’s prime brokerage division, Nomura Asia Holding: ‘Asia’s only home-grown prime broker’. Ex-Lehman Brothers’ Wannenmacher moved over to the Japanese investment bank after the US bank went under in October ’08 and Nomura bought its prime brokerage division. Wannenmacher, along with colleague Gunner Burkhart, then became co-global heads of Nomura’s prime services business following the merger of the two units. The reasons behind Wannenmacher’s sudden departure are not known at this stage. Burkhart himself changed roles back in May this year to become global head of senior relationship management at Nomura. It isn’t known who could be in the running to replace Wannenmacher in what will be a very high profile role as Nomura seeks to actively compete with the likes of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank to win market share in the prime brokerage arena – as evidenced by its slogan referred to earlier. Currently, Chris Antonelli heads up prime services in Japan, whilst Jeff Zorek and Matt Pinnock are co-heads of prime services, EMEA. Speaking to AsianInvestor last week, Wannenmacher said: “We plan to be the dominant prime broker in Japanese strategies, and we plan to move fast to capture that business.” Nomura Asia Holding intends to target global hedge funds operating out of the region that are looking for prime broker diversification as well as those running Japan-focused strategies. It isn’t believed Wannenmacher’s departure will have any bearing on Nomura’s growth strategy.
