If the financial crisis and the fierce regulatory backlash that it sparked are sounding the death knell for Wall Street’s old ways, it is not a sound being heard inside Nomura’s New York headquarters.
In a skyscraper that once housed Merrill Lynch, some 2,000 traders, bankers and support staff – many of them recent hires – are striving to add a Japanese name to the “bulge bracket” club of US and European investment banks.
Taking place just steps away from another, more poignant, rebirth – the Freedom Tower that will replace the World Trade Center destroyed in the September 2001 terrorist attacks – the Nomura build-up is a sign of the financial sector’s phoenix-like ability to rebound from periodic downfalls. When firms fail, such as Lehman Brothers, or are acquired, as Merrill was by Bank of America, others take their place, in a Darwinian process that keeps the industry alive and the wheels of commerce turning.