Top macro trader's motivation for leaving the beach
When Nat Tyce left Barclays in June last year, he was on something of a high. Fixed income revenues at the British bank were up 51% year-on-year in the first half, driven partly by the EMEA macro trading team that Tyce ran. His boss loved him. And 2021 bonuses at Barclays were higher than they'd been for years.
After 25 years in the industry, all at the same bank, it was time to call it a day. Tyce didn't comment for this article, but headhunters say he went into semi-retirement.
And yet, less than a year later, Tyce is back. And not at Barclays. He's joined Nomura instead.
The Japanese bank revealed this week that Tyce is going to be its new global head of markets for EMEA. Ostensibly, he's replacing John Goff, the former global EMEA head of markets at the Japanese bank. Goff was promoted to run global markets in EMEA in 2015, but has now been demoted to his previous position as head of structuring.
Those who know him say Tyce is on a par with Steve Ashley, the former head of global markets at Nomura and ex-star rates trader at RBS, who joined Nomura in 2010. Ashley stepped back to run the bank's crypto trading spinout late last year.
Tyce appears to have been hired by Rig Karkhanis, Nomura's head of global markets, who moved to London from Singapore in April. Karkhanis has been shaking up the London team: Pasquale Cataldi, the former head of EMEA rates trading, who joined from JPMorgan in 2022, left this month and is now on gardening leave.
Tyce has a bigger role at Nomura than he had at Barclays. He's also likely to have a handsome pay packet: Nomura disclosed today that Christopher Willcox, who runs the wholesale bank and is responsible for trading, underwriting and advice on mergers, was paid $5.2m for the year to March. The Japanese bank has long had a reputation for having a robust risk appetite and pays accordingly.
Nomura also has a tendency to take a punt on big name veteran traders who want to make a comeback. Jim Hough joined last October, nearly three years after leaving BlueCrest. In 2021, it hired Kevin Connors, the former global co-head of FX sales at Goldman Sachs and ex-global head of FX sales at Bank of America.
Tyce presumably felt that Nomura was a more exciting bet than going back to Barclays. When Tyce left the British bank, Barclays' head of macro trading Michael Lublinsky described him as a "deeply valued colleague" who'd been instrumental in building the business and would be "deeply missed." Barclays has since hired at least six people to its global macro platform. After a year out, Tyce preferred a change of scene instead.
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