BS People: Prabhat Awasthi

Nomura picks equities veteran

When Nomura named Prabhat Awasthi to head its equities business in India last month, it did not come as a surprise for many.

Awasthi has been instrumental in building the equities franchise for Japan’s largest brokerage firm in India since it acquired the Asian and European businesses of Lehman Brothers in late 2008. Since then, he has been heading Nomura’s equities research team in the country and will continue to oversee the same even after his recent elevation.

Awasthi, who was heading Lehman Brothers’ equities research team in India before it was acquired by Numura, has over 17 years experience in the Indian equities market. He was a founding member of the Brics Securities, whose institutional broking business was acquired by Lehman Brothers in 2007. Awasthi, who began his career in 1994 as a senior ratings analyst with Crisil, also had stints with JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley.

Since 2008, Nomura has on-boarded over 300 equities clients in India. It has expanded its research coverage to 110 large and mid-cap Indian companies, as per a company statement. However, the road ahead will not be easy for Awasthi. His brief is to achieve Nomura’s aim to become a top five player in a fiercely competitive Indian equities broking business.

It will be interesting to see how Nomura will fare in the next few years under Awasthi. They will be competing against the more entrenched foreign firms in the institutional broking business and face competition from aggressive new players in one of the fastest growing markets in the world.