The cloud of uncertainty over the Indian operations of Lehman Brothers has not disappeared, even after it was taken over by Japanese company Nomura six months ago. Nomura is now looking at downsizing its employees across the board, in Mumbai, furnishing ‘non-performance’ as the reason for the move, according to sources. Interestingly, June onwards, the company plans to start hiring afresh, at lower salaries.
At least 20-30 employees have been asked to leave the company, located at Powai in Mumbai, said sources. However, there has not been any delay in monthly salaries of employees.
When FE contacted the company through their media relations agency, they denied any move to downsize staff.
Apparently, after Nomura took over the operations of Lehman, it asked erstwhile Lehman employees to sign a one-year contract, paying them a joining bonus. Increments for Lehman employees will take place only in the month of April, said sources. Currently, Nomura employs over 2,400 people in India, including its global services hub in Powai, which supports Nomura’s infrastructure, systems and processes globally.
The employees here handle different operations like cash reconciliation, trade settlements and information technology for the investment bank. “While volumes today have dropped, owing to the global turmoil, we expect things to fall in place in the next six months,” said an official with Nomura.
However, despite the ongoing turmoil, the company launched its equity sales and trading and investment banking operations in India, during the month of February. The operations were launched through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities India Pvt Ltd. Earlier, Nomura Holdings Inc had agreed to acquire Lehman’s Indian operations for several billion yen, in October 2008. Battered by huge losses in the American mortgage market, Lehman had filed for bankruptcy protection with the US regulator. Since then, the firm had been disposing off its assets; Nomura snapped up the investment bank’s Asia-Pacific, European and Middle East operations.
Its North American operations were acquired by British banking major Barclays.
