July 2 (Bloomberg) -- Barclays Plc, the bank that bought Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s U.S. operations, said it hired Satoshi Matsumoto from Nomura Holdings Inc. to expand its investment banking business in Japan.

Matsumoto, 40, who joined Nomura from Lehman in October, started yesterday as a managing director and head of consumer and retail coverage at the corporate finance group at Barclays’s investment banking division in Japan, the London-based company said in an e-mailed statement.

Matsumoto handled more than 500 billion yen ($5.2 billion) of cross-border transactions for Japanese companies over the last two years, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg News. He advised Kirin Holdings Co. in the Tokyo-based brewer’s purchase of a stake in San Miguel Brewery Inc. this year, the memo said.

Barclays hired 10 people in Japan in January, including Hideki Sunaga, former head of European investment banking at Nomura. The bank aims to double investment banking staff to about 80 over two years to expand its nascent merger advisory and equity capital markets businesses, Sunaga, co-head of investment banking in Japan, said in an interview in March.

Barclays, an early bidder in the contest won by Nomura for Lehman’s operations in Asia, has hired about 100 people since October, mainly from Lehman, to boost equity research and sales.

Barclays was named one of the main managers in May for Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc.’s sale of as much as $9.6 billion in shares. The bank is the No. 5 underwriter for Japanese equity transactions so far this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

To contact the reporter on this story: Takahiko Hyuga in Tokyo at thyuga@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 2, 2009 02:16 EDT