In recent months, Nomura’s offices in Hong Kong have been uncharacteristically busy. Japan’s largest investment banking group – which until recently had a fairly low-key presence in Asian markets outside Japan – has been involved in a flurry of deals, ranging from KKR’s acquisition of Korea’s Oriental Brewery to Beijing Enterprises’ convertible bond issue.

For Nomura, winning a role in these deals marks a seminal step in its global expansion. Before its acquisition last year of Lehman Brothers’ Asian operations as well as parts of its European and Middle Eastern businesses, Nomura had been a bank focused largely on serving Japanese clients at home and abroad.