(Bloomberg) -- One of the most senior officials at Nomura Holdings Inc.’s trading division is stepping down, the latest personnel move at Japan’s biggest brokerage as it attempts to wrest more profits out of global markets.
Richard Volpe, global head of rates trading at Nomura’s securities division, is leaving, according to people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity as details aren’t public. A spokesperson for the Tokyo-based bank declined to comment.
The rates-trading business, which buys and sells products tied to interest rates, such as government bonds, is one of the most important revenue generators for Nomura. It has been grappling with a domestic trading scandal while the unit’s European arm has also gone through multiple leaders in London in recent years.
The spokesperson for Nomura also declined to comment on who will take over the rates business. Volpe didn’t immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
Personnel Changes
Nomura admitted in October that one of its traders manipulated the market for derivatives tied to Japanese government debt in 2021 by placing large orders for the securities without intending to buy or sell them.
Nomura has been restricted from so-called “special entitlements” in state bond auctions while corporate clients such as Toyota Finance Corp. and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. removed the firm as a bond manager, Bloomberg has reported. Some trading clients have since resumed business with the brokerage.
Volpe, a Wall Street veteran, held senior roles at Bear Stearns & Co. Inc. and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc before joining Nomura in 2015. He was promoted in the wake of the Archegos Capital Management debacle in 2021, when the bank lost almost $3 billion on trades with the US family office.
His departure comes as Nomura is seeking to almost double profit by March 2031, in part by making its key wholesale division finance its own operations and shifting resources to areas where it wants to grow. In its most recent quarter, Nomura said markets revenue soared 30%, aided by an uptick in client activity in the rates business.
Kevin Connors, a key figure in the build out of the firm’s foreign exchange and emerging markets trading business in recent years, also left the firm earlier this year.
Earlier this month, Nomura said John Tierney would replace Jonathan Lewis as chief executive officer of Nomura Europe Holdings Plc and Nomura International Plc, the bank’s key European subsidiaries. Tierney’s appointment came just eight months after announcing that another senior official would take that position.
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