'We keep having to review our approach because of Brexit'

Mr Ball, former Kames Capital head of distribution, explains: “We’ve had to brainstorm all of the various scenarios, and we keep having to review our approach because of all the turmoil around Brexit.”

In fact, Mr Ball, who took on his new role in September 2018 after a year-long hiatus from the industry spent playing golf, rebuilding a house and visiting friends in New York, says he has a meeting regarding Brexit scheduled that very afternoon, “when I should be out talking to clients”.

He says: “Instead, we’re looking at, and focusing on, whether the regulators agree that our approach [to Brexit] is fine.”

We’re very fortunate that we have a Germany office with fund managers as well, so we can use that legal entity to help us, but having the uncertainty still around is not helpful.Peter Ball

He continues: “The government has just spent, essentially, something around 90+ per cent of its life working on Brexit, and while the regulators seem to be much calmer and in good discussions, they’re still sitting on the sidelines a little bit, waiting for the big resolution before they come out and say ‘everything is fine’.

“I don’t think people truly appreciate the amount of ‘eye off the ball’ of general business that has happened across the industry due to Brexit.”

Indeed, following years of uncertainty, companies across the sector have struggled to understand how to take precautionary action to safeguard interests against the many uncertainties and questions surrounding Britain’s exit from the EU.

Mr Ball continues: “I’ve got people who sell in Italy; so the question there was will they be able to do that if we crash out? It’s still not obvious if that’s going to be the case.

“However, we’re very fortunate that we have a Germany office with fund managers as well, so we can use that legal entity to help us, but having the uncertainty still around is not helpful.”

But it is not just the business that has had to deal with Brexit; clients have had to bear the brunt as well.

He says: “We have naturally written to some of our clients to say ‘we might need to change you from contacting with our UK legal entity to continental European’.

“The answer to the client is: you don’t know, we don’t know, but we’re just trying to plan for every eventuality.”

He adds: “And that has had to be impactful for the UK businesses.”

A positive outlook

Despite the negative impact on business productivity stemming from Brexit uncertainty, Mr Ball says the outlook at Nomura Asset Management is very much a positive one.

To avoid further slowdown of the economy and risk plunging the UK into recession, there has to be a positive resolution to Brexit, he explains.

Markets like certainty and not uncertainty, he reiterates, and so a positive resolution would, in turn, have a positive impact on markets.

He says: “Our base case is that, while there will be an economic slowdown, and a hard, chaotic Brexit would only add to that, asset values remain encouraging and it’s important to stress the difference between the two.”

Mr Ball, who is responsible for distribution in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, for both institutional and wholesale, says “we’re perhaps a bit more optimistic than most”, but that it is important to clarify exactly what that means.

Mr Ball explains: “We have a positive outlook on asset values; while the market was positive in 2018 that doesn’t mean there is not going to be a bit of a slowdown, but we think that the bumps in last year’s performance mean there are opportunities this year.

Indeed, Mr Ball says the market downturn experienced in the fourth quarter last year has meant a lot of assets are much better valued this year.

Leading changes at Nomura

According to Mr Ball, the business structure at Nomura Asset Management is a wider combination of things most people would not expect.

Mr Ball says his biggest challenge for 2019 is to widen the perception and knowledge within both institutional and wholesale markets of the business’ range of capabilities.

He says: “One would expect Nomura to work with Japanese equities, and of course, we are very good at that, but not everybody knows that we have fund managers here [in London].”

“And actually, some 46 per cent of assets stem from EMEA clients, and the biggest chunk of assets in EMEA are from US high-yield, as opposed to Japanese equity.”

He continues: “I’m here to change things – we have to improve the understanding of our business across the market.

“With so many countries in EMEA to cover, we’re just scratching the surface.”

Victoria Ticha is a features writer at Financial Adviser and FTAdviser.com