A new generation embraces M&A | Nikkei heads for 24,000 by 2010... or sooner | Debt is not a dirty word | Funds get activist in Japan | Living in the past; paying with the future
EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO, Brian Mccappin’s friends were worried about him. For some strange reason, the English investment banker had chosen to leave Citigroup’s all-conquering bond business in Europe to take up a new job as co-head of fixed income at Nikko Citigroup in Tokyo. His first task: to propel the firm into the top three dealers in Japanese government bonds. To his peers that sounded simultaneously demanding and dull – a uniquely dire combination.
“They told me I must be absolutely mad to leave Europe at that point in my career.”
In the 15-year stagnation since the Japanese bubble burst, the country has almost ceased to exist on the mental world map of an entire generation of investment bankers. The good news for Mccappin is that this neglect meant that his determined, rapid and rather un-Japanese restructuring of the Japanese fixed-income business produced speedy results.
Nikko Citigroup soon moved up the league tables of government bond dealers and primary market underwriters.
