Pembroke: Nomura turns back the clock and hires again

NOMURA Securities, the largest of the Japanese stockbrokers, seems to be undergoing a bit of a volte face. Less than nine months after deciding to trim its European operations and lay off 49 of its European share trading staff, the broker has started recruiting again - at top-drawer salaries.

In the past few weeks Nomura has hired five new sector analysts, including Paul Smiddy, Kleinwort Benson's food retailing specialist and Nigel Utley, Credit Lyonnais-Laing's conglomerates guru, as well as a new head of UK sales, four UK salesmen and a Southern European economist.

Nomura is also on the hunt for banking and financial services analysts, an area left unattended after the recent departure of John Tyce, Nomura's head of research.

We hear that the money is rather good - as much as pounds 200,000 a year plus bonuses for top analysts. 'This is top dollar,' froths one broker. 'It's like it used to be before the crash.'

AND IN Japan, it emerges that those awfully nice Toyota people have developed a wheeze to help ensure that their staff maintain the correct level of niceness. The company has had cards specially printed bearing the motto: 'Be a trustworthy corporate citizen of the world, guided by principles of open and fair corporate behaviour.'

The cards, which are slightly larger than a business card, are intended as an 'aide memoire' that Toyota salarymen can slip in their wallets. So every time the poor blighters reach into their wallet for a few yen, they are racked with guilt.

Sega, the Sonic the Hedgehog computer game specialist, is planning to use the school holidays to full effect. From 17 July until mid-September, Sega will send out double-decker game buses on a nationwide tour.

The three buses, equipped with the latest computer gizmos, will tour holiday spots searching for the highest scoring players.

Something of a mixed blessing, we think. True, it will get shot of little Johnny for a couple of hours. But when he comes back he will have his head full of an extra-long Sega wish-list.

Sega is not stopping there, either. In the autumn it is teaming up with the Scouts Association to catch them even younger.

THE NEWS you have all been waiting for. You will now be able to pop into your local branch of Littlewoods and buy yourself a cheap frock and book your holiday at the same time.

Littlewoods has signed an agreement with Ilkeston Co-Op Travel to sell holidays and flights in its stores. The scheme will be piloted (sorry) at the Derby store and, if successful, will be rolled out to all the retailer's 123 branches. As an inducement you get a pounds 10 Littlewoods voucher for every pounds 100 of holidays you book.

FRED seems to be the 'in' acronym of the moment. First the Accounting Standards Board brought you Fred1 (Financial Reporting Exposure Drafts). Now, State Street Global Advisors, a fund manager, has chipped in with Fred2 (Factor Rotation and Earnings Disciplines), a supposedly new active qualitative product.