Nomura, the Japan-based financial services firm, has announced the formation of the macro strategy research team as part of its continuing effort to expand in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

The new team is complemented by the appointments of Dr Nick Firooyze as head of European interest rates strategy and Ann Wyman as head of European emerging markets research. It will be led by Jim McCormick, the current head of fixed income research for the EMEA region.

Mr Firooyze joins the firm from Citadel Investment group, where he was head of fixed income quantitative research, while Ms Wyman steps in from Citigroup, where was a senior economist for the economic and political strategies group in New York.

"A key element of the post-crisis environment is a renewed focus on macro analysis and Nomura is perfectly positioned to be the leading provider of macro research in EMEA," said Mr McCormick earlier this week. 

The team will be tasked to provide advice on cross-market portfolio allocations to the firm's senior clients and build an analytical toolkit for cross-asset monitoring and trading.

Nomura has been actively beefing up its operations over the past months in a bid to become one of the top five investment banks in the world. Just recently, it announced that it is planning to purchase a 33 per cent stake in BNP Paribas' China operations for around $44 million. No final decision has been made on this matter to date.