Misys Midas Plus Selected by Mizuho

Mizuho Corporate Bank, headquartered in Tokyo, has selected Misys Midas Plus with Global Processing to support its ambitious international growth strategy. The implementation of the first site in Europe has been completed with all other operations to move onto the central hub individually. The integrated core banking solution will help Mizuho to deliver improved efficiencies and more informed decision-making within its commercial and investment banking operations and ensure a consistent level of customer service across the bank's global network.

Building on its strong client base, Mizuho's business strategy has two elements. First, the bank is combining its commercial banking and investment banking capabilities to offer its corporate customers a complete portfolio of services, including syndicated loans, M&A deals, leveraged finance, project finance, cash management and securities. Secondly, the bank is applying this business model on a global scale by extending the geographic coverage of its international network. Mizuho opened six international branches in 2006 and a further three branches in 2007.

Midas Plus with Global Processing will be used to centralise IT systems servicing branches throughout Europe. This will enable the bank to standardise business processes across its network, yet deliver the flexibility required to meet local regulatory environments and regional variations in business practice. Having a single system to support multiple branches will allow a single update to reflect changes into all the offices using Midas Plus with Global Processing.

By consolidating the IT infrastructure, the bank will streamline operations, deliver a consistent level of service to customers and improve the speed at which it can roll out additional branches. Midas Plus will reduce complexity and simplifying the bank's IT infrastructure, resulting in cost reduction, better access to information from across the business and a faster response to changes in the industry. Ultimately, it will substantially enhance how the bank delivers services to its corporate customers around the world.

Importantly, Mizuho executives will have an enterprise-wide view of the bank's management information and a much clearer picture of risk across the organisation. The ability to make more informed decisions based on a global perspective was a key requirement from the bank.

Graeme Beardsell, Head of Sales for Misys in Asia, adds, "We have built an excellent track record of providing a solution that enables banks to run their international operations with maximum efficiency and control. Our Global Processing facility within Misys Midas Plus will enable Mizuho to reduce the cost of operations considerably and provide the flexibility to explore new markets with minimal additional investment. We look forward to working with Mizuho in the future as we roll out the project."

Nomura Acquires European Arm of Lehman Brothers

Nomura, has reached an agreement to acquire the European and Middle Eastern equities and investment banking operations of Lehman Brothers.

The acquisition will provide Nomura with a market leading equities and investment banking platform in the region and further enhance Nomura's strategy of connecting Asia and Europe. The deal follows Nomura's agreement yesterday to acquire Lehman Brothers' entire franchise in the Asia Pacific region including Japan and Australia.

Lehman's equities and investment banking businesses in Europe and the Middle East employed around 2500 staff, of whom a significant proportion are expected to be retained.

The deal does not include any trading assets or trading liabilities and Nomura will pay an undisclosed sum for the businesses.
Kenichi Watanabe, Nomura's CEO, said: "In the past 24 hours Nomura has executed two transformational deals. This transaction will significantly extend our European footprint and international reach, enabling us to realise our strategy of delivering Asia to the world. Our immediate priority is to get the equity and investment banking divisions back in business operating under the Nomura name."

Weather Derivatives

FS Energy, LLC, a leading interdealer broker and a subsidiary of Compagnie Financiere Tradition, today announced its US and Australia-based weather derivatives division completed the first-ever auction in Asia on behalf of a client who was looking to diversify its weather exposure and to help build liquidity in Japan. Offers were solicited for cumulative average temperature futures and calls in Japan for the May - September 2008 time period for the cities of Tokyo and Osaka. The auction was fully placed and was over subscribed in terms of the capacity that was available in the market. Offers interested in participating in the auction had to submit formal proposals to TFS Energy by 12 noon (Eastern Standard Time) on March 27, 2008. The auction followed the very successful Dutch auction format, which has been repeatedly used by TFS Energy clients throughout the world.

"We are very pleased with the notional value of $11.25 million for the first-ever auction in Japan. Closing this auction signals the benefits of the auction format especially in areas of the world that do not have a highly liquid weather market. From the interest that we saw in this auction and the amount of business that traded bilaterally immediately following the auction, it is fair to say that we tapped into the growth potential that we have seen all along in Asia," commented Kendall Johnson, MD and Global Head of Weather Derivatives for TFS Energy. "This will be the first of many more transactions to come."

TFS Energy has hosted numerous auctions ranging in magnitude from $1 million to upwards of $60 million of transferred risk. This auction comes after TFS Energy's largest-ever Dutch auction on behalf of UBS, where the notional value was in excess of $64 million. Its weather desks are located in Stamford, London, and Sydney.