Nomura Securities Taps Wall Street Veteran

Japan’s Nomura Securities Co. has named a veteran of Wall Street as co-chairman of its U.S. securities operation, a move aimed at giving it an American identity and management style.

Max C. Chapman Jr., the 46-year-old former president and chief executive of Kidder, Peabody & Co., said he hoped to put a Wall Street stamp on the U.S. operations of the world’s largest securities firm.

“I believe Nomura is deadly serious about trying to find a way to marry their system and the good parts of the American system together,” he said.

Chapman--who served as a captain in the Marine Corps Reserve and played football for four years at the University of North Carolina--will share the top job at Nomura with the current chairman, Katsuya Takanashi.

Nomura has invested heavily in its New York operation but has yet to show consistent success. Its U.S. operations lost about $18 million in the year ended Sept. 30, 1988, and Nomura has reduced its broker-dealer staff to 550 from a peak of 650 before the 1987 stock market crash, the company said.

Chapman, who spent his entire career at Kidder, said he resigned from the firm earlier this year after being passed over for the job of chief executive of Kidder’s parent company, Kidder, Peabody Group Inc., which is majority owned by General Electric Co.

Nomura is the last of Japan’s big four securities firms to have an American in the rank of co-chairman or vice chairman. Chapman will serve as co-chairman of both Nomura Securities International Inc. and Nomura Holding America Inc.

Nomura’s main business in the United States is funneling money from Japanese investors into the U.S. stock and bond markets. It also works with Japanese companies doing business in the United States. Its goal is to pick up more American customers, particularly corporations that need sophisticated financial services.