IN BRIEF (Page 16)

Mizuho hiring plans

Mizuho Securities Co plans to hire about 150 investment bankers in London, taking advantage of falling pay demands among the swelling ranks of finance professionals left jobless after the credit crisis.

The hires are part of a drive to bolster the Japanese firm's mergers advisory business and break into the market for managing share and bond sales in Europe, said President Keisuke Yokoo. Mizuho Securities, an affiliate of Japan's second-largest bank by revenue, employs about 420 people in London, he said.