Nomura's Nick Jordan Won't Get Russia Post

Wall Street Journal Europe

April 28, 2009

By JASON CORCORAN

MOSCOW -- Nick Jordan, one of the highest-profile bankers in Russia, has lost out on a top job at his employer, Nomura Holdings, putting his future at the Japanese bank in doubt and possibly heralding the end for Moscow's best-paid foreign "rainmakers."

Mr. Jordan had been named in an internal memo last month as the future head of the combined Nomura-Lehman Brothers business in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

But now Maxim Seltzer, who joined Nomura in 2006 and was made general director of Nomura CIS in March 2007 when Nomura opened an office there, is getting the job, according to a Nomura spokesman.

It wasn't immediately clear what had prompted the rethink at the Japanese bank. People familiar with management's thinking said Mr. Jordan was felt to be much too expensive in the current climate. Also, he is London-based and travels to Moscow while Mr. Seltzer has always been based full-time in Moscow.

The American banker was hired two years ago by Lehman Brothers from Deutsche Bank to lead the U.S. bank's second foray into Russia. He had spent a decade at Deutsche Bank AG working on deals involving energy company Gazprom and other companies closely linked to the Kremlin.

Most of the team Mr. Jordan recruited over the past two years in Moscow have left or have been let go, according to people familiar with the situation. These include Peter Ghavami, who had been head of capital markets and who joined Standard Bank earlier this year.

Mr. Jordan declined to comment. Nomura said it "was committed" to Russia and the CIS and had "an active" mergers and acquisition and initial public offering pipeline.

Competition between the largest international and domestic banks to sign Russia's leading bankers had resulted in multi-million dollar guaranteed remuneration packages in recent years. But the slowdown in capital markets has forced banks with Russian business to cut their costs and salaries.

A second foreign rainmaker, Bob Foresman, is relocating with his family back to the U.S. and will commute to Moscow for 12 working days a month as deputy chairman of Renaissance Capital, part of Renaissance Group. A Renaissance Capital spokesman said Mr. Foresman had a young family and he wanted them to go to school in the U.S. and learn to play American sports.