Nikko appts

Nikko Principal Investments Limited, the European proprietary investment arm of Nikko Cordial Corporation, has appointed Mark Gomar as principal. He will take prime responsibility to develop NPIL’s investment activities in continental Europe.

Gomar joins from WestLB where he has been working on the bank’s exit from its Principal Finance private equity portfolio. Most recently Gomar has been on secondment as executive chairman of Swan Group plc, the holding company for Mid Kent Water. Since this appointment, he has overseen a strategic restructuring of the Group, leading the way for the successful sale of Mid Kent Water to funds managed by Hastings Fund Management in February 2005.

Prior to this Gomar was head of special investments & corporate advisory for WestLB, which included the bank’s proprietary investment activities in distressed debt and active turnarounds. He spent two years in Singapore, as head of Asian operations of WestLB’s Global Emerging Markets division and before that, as managing director of West Merchant Bank, had responsibility for the bank’s capital markets activities in Russia and Eastern Europe. Gomar’s City career began in 1984 at Swiss Bank Corporation (the forerunner of UBS) and he also spent three years at Charterhouse Bank.