In the game of chicken, two cars race towards each other head-on and the first driver to take evasive action is the loser. Japanese investment bank Nomura may not be speeding towards another car, but it is definitely well down the road with a global expansion strategy in which it cannot afford to lose its nerve. If it blinks, everything it has worked towards in the past three years could be lost.
When it snapped up Lehman Brothers' Europe, Middle East and Africa business for a couple of dollars and its Asian business for $225m three years ago, Nomura thought it had grabbed the bargain of the century. But while the acquisition itself was remarkably cheap, turning it into a profitable purchase has been more challenging than senior managers could ever have anticipated.