Mizuho picks up Lehman traders

Japan's Mizuho Financial Group is set to start electronic trading in Asia with a team of 16 ex-Lehman Brothers staff, insiders say.

The team, led by Anthony Brooker, former head of electronic trading sales for Lehman in Asia, will seek institutional investors and hedge funds as clients.

Brooker decided not to join Nomura after the Japanese firm took over Lehman's Asian and UK operations.

Lehman was a key player in electronic trading and Mizuho's poaching of Brooker and many of his team is seen as boosting its challenge to Nomura.

Nomura has lost about 100 Lehman workers in Asia who have joined Barclays or Merrill Lynch.

Michael Tory, who ran UK investment banking for Lehman, Riccardo Banchetti, Lehman's co-chief executive for Europe, and Alexis de Rosnay, who co-ran European investment banking, are all reported not to be joining Nomura.