Nomura Australia has informed staff that John Hanson is leaving the firm, sources told Street Talk.
Hanson was co-head of Nomura's Australian investment banking operations and led the consumer, retail and healthcare sectors locally.
A memo to staff, obtained by this column, said Hanson had decided to leave the firm effective Friday.
"John has spent the past eight years with Nomura and has been instrumental in raising our profile in Australia," the memo authored by Australia boss Toru Okuzawa and Kenji Teshima Nomura's head of investment banking in Asia ex-Japan.
Sources told Street Talk Hanson was taking a career break to spend time with his family before assessing his next move.
Hanson's LinkedIn profile showed he started in investment banking in 1999 at Deutsche Bank after a stint at Arthur Andersen corporate finance. Last year, he worked on transactions including helping Pact Group chairman and billionaire Raphael Geminder to snap up a bigger stake in Green's Foods.
Hanson also advised KKR when the private equity firm made a tilt for Treasury Wine Estates three years ago (which was rebuffed) and worked on the mammoth Toll Holdings acquisition of Patrick Corporation.
The Nomura memo said Andrew Macgonigal would become sole head of investment banking in Australia and continue to report directly to Teshima. In the role Macgonigal would have expanded responsibilities to "further grow" the Australian business, and the memo pointed out that Nomura still viewed Australia as a priority market.
Nomura has, however, had a patchy run in Australia after dismantling its equities unit here and undertaking several rounds of cost cutting.
The firm last year said it was taking steps to align with a global directive that the Japanese firm's foreign outposts must be profitable by 2017.
Nomura was this week hired alongside boutique firm Luminis to conduct a review of Suncorp's Australian life insurance business. Last year, it advised Zurich on its acquisition of Macquarie Group's life insurance unit.
Nomura will now include the consumer retail sector in its general industrials team, which will be headed by Gordon Slater. Nick Ellmore becomes head of ALF and co-head of sponsors, partnering with Slater in the latter role.
