Nomura, the Japanese investment bank, has appointed Prabhat Awasthi as head of equities, India. Awasthi will be responsible for the delivery of Nomura's strategy for equities in India and strengthening the firm's local presence.
Awasthi joined Nomura in October 2008 as the head of equity research, India, which he will continue to oversee. He joined from Lehman Brothers, where he held the same position. Prior to that, he was a founding member of the institutional broking business of Brics Securities, acquired by Lehman Brothers in 2007. He previously worked at JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and credit ratings organisation Crisil, where he began his career in 1994.
“This appointment underlines Nomura's commitment to India and to achieving our goal of becoming a top five player in the local market,” commented Vikas Sharma, president and CEO, Nomura financial advisory and securities.
Since 2008, Nomura has gained 300 equities clients in India, including many global funds, and expanded its research coverage to 110 large and mid-cap Indian companies. It has a full service equities platform in India, executing cash equities, futures and options, as well as offering clearing services for futures and options, direct market access and a range of algorithms for electronic trading. Nomura also provides advisory for structured product offerings and is an issuer of equity-linked products.
In May Nomura's joint head of global equities, Naoki Matsuba, gave up his role as CEO Americas and moved to Tokyo to focus on the equities business, in partnership with London-based Benoit Savoret.
Atsushi Yoshikawa took up the CEO position in the Americas, where the firm has made a number of hires recently, including Lori Arndt who moved from Goldman Sachs to become managing director of US client strategy and corporate access.