So farewell, then, Max Chapman, the banker who got closer to the top of a Japanese financial institution than any other westerner, and who resigned last month to spend more time enjoying his Arizona ranch and his personal fortune estimated to be $100 million.
He joined Nomura in 1989 - from Kidder Peabody, where he was president and chief executive officer, and within three years had become head of Nomura Securities International, the US subsidiary.
The US division prospered, largely off the back of its real-estate operations which he ran with Ethan Penner. Just two years ago Chapman's realm, along with the London operations, became a ray of light for Nomura against a dark world of scandal in Japan.
Junichi Ujiie, appointed Nomura's chief executive after the scandals of the mid-1990s, saw in Chapman a man with the potential to meld the overseas units and extend their success to Japan. Chapman kept his role in the US, and was made chairman and chief executive of Nomura International in London. It didn't work. His brash, often arrogant style did not go down well in London.
As early as last March, in an interview with Euromoney, he talked of splitting up one of the most successful businesses - Guy Hands' principal finance group - into separate divisions. And his relationship with London president Takumi Shibata was said to be fraught.
He even tried to take on Ujiie. "When the two were together discussing strategy," says one insider. "I had a sense from the way he spoke, and from his demeanour, that Chapman was thinking: 'Ujiie may be the boss, but we all know I'm running the show.'"
Last summer he apparently demanded a more senior position. Ujiie made him wait a month, until after the Russia crisis hit in August, and offered him the post of non-executive chairman of Nomura's ex-Japan operations. The businesses he had helped build were now leaking money: the emerging-markets proprietary trading desk in New York was hit badly and closed, US real-estate losses piled up and Penner resigned. That, combined with his antagonistic style, sealed Chapman's fate.
Nomura, having once heralded Chapman almost as its saviour, is now in trouble. It was downgraded to just above junk status at the end of March, which sapped the profit margin from its repo and derivatives business, and then it announced losses of ¥545 billion ($4.6 billion).
On the bright side, Nomura has managed to set up a syndicated loan for $4 billion, of which it is using $3 billion to maintain liquidity, and plans to invest the rest in high-margin businesses. This could mean Hands' group - but that niche is fast becoming more competitive. It might not look so good for Nomura at present but, says a banker at a rival Japanese bank, "you write them off at your peril". Antony Currie