Nomura Completes Hire of Top Ranked European Oil and Gas Research Team

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, Apr 20 (MARKET WIRE) --
Nomura today announced that it has completed the build out of its
European oil and gas equity research team with the hire of Alastair Syme
and James Talbot from Merrill Lynch and Michael Alsford, from Morgan
Stanley.

Alastair Syme, will be covering the European oil majors and leading a
team of four sector experts based in London. James Talbot joins as an
industry specialist and Michael Alsford will provide lead coverage of oil
and gas exploration and production companies. Iqbal Naseem will be
responsible for coverage of European oil services companies and Ryan
Kauppila will follow European refineries.

"These hires form part of Nomura's international growth strategy. We are
actively searching for the best analysts in each sector and we're excited
about the opportunity we have to invest in the current market
environment," said Paul Norris, head of EMEA equity research at Nomura.
"Nomura's European stocks under coverage will expand to 600 when our
current hiring program is complete," he added.

This announcement closely follows the appointment of Amit Roy as head of
pharmaceuticals research from Citigroup and Julian Mitchell as head of
industrials research, previously at Och Ziff and Credit Suisse. Amit
joined Nomura in January 2009 and recently launched coverage of
pharmaceuticals stocks with an in-depth sector initiation report and
Julian joined in April 2009 after spending time on the buy-side and
having been highly ranked at Credit Suisse.

Nomura has a strong research heritage in Japan and the firm's enhanced
research product for Europe, Middle East and Africa was launched on 27
October 2008, incorporating full coverage of all major industry sectors.
Nomura is consistently ranked number one for Japanese equity research and
is committed to reaching a similar position in Europe and the Asia region
outside of Japan.

Notes to editors:

Nomura

Nomura is a leading financial services group and the pre-eminent
Asian-based investment bank with worldwide reach. Nomura provides a broad
range of innovative solutions tailored to the specific requirements of
individual, institutional, corporate and government clients through an
international network in over 30 countries. Based in Tokyo and with
regional headquarters in Hong Kong, London, and New York, Nomura employs
about 26,000 staff worldwide. Nomura's unique understanding of Asia
enables the company to make a difference for clients through five
business divisions: domestic retail, global markets, global investment
banking, global merchant banking, and asset management. For further
information about Nomura, please visit www.nomura.com.

Contacts:
Nomura
Jonathan Hodgkinson
+44 (0) 20 7102 1471
www.nomura.com

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