Nomura reassigns equities COO to head of Instinet

Agency broker Instinet has announced that Shaun Bramham is taking over from Glenn Lesko as its new Asia-Pacific head, based in Hong Kong.

Bramham moves from COO of Nomura’s Asia ex-Japan equities business. It comes after the Japanese investment bank merged its equities trading platform with its affiliate Instinet in a cost-driven consolidation last September.

Lesko is set to return to the US in a promotion to global head of client strategy and US international product and sales. As such he will still be visiting the region.

He expects the transition to take several months, during which period he will be working closely with Bramham, and says it should be completed by summertime.

Speaking to AsianInvestor, Lesko describes the move to bring in Bramham as a logical progression as the centre of Instinet’s universe moves East.

“Instinet is now really being run in the context of being the cash execution services business for the group,” he says. “We will take advantage of [Bramham’s] operations experience in the markets and knowledge of Nomura.”

Lesko indicates that the migration of Nomura’s cash equities business to Instinet is half to three-quarters completed, and in the past six months has essentially doubled the firm’s market share of value traded in Asia ex-Japan to 4%.

Asked about areas of overlap, he points to electronic trading in particular, as well as programme trading and cash sales trading, but suggests cuts have largely been attritional rather than enforced.

He indicates that one area Instinet will be continuing to commit capital to is its indication of interest (IOI) technology. “A lot of our technology development prior to the merger was focused on low-touch, self-directed trading,” says Lesko.

“Now we will be focusing our technology across the high-touch business as well, which is something I will be working closely with [Bramham] on in my new capacity.”

News on Bramham’s replacement as COO of Nomura’s Asia ex-Japan equities business is set to be announced shortly, confirms a company spokesman.