2010 bonuses will be down. Even the CEBR, whose bonus predictions are an endlessly mutable feast has reached this conclusion. Earlier this year, it said the 2010/11 City bonus round would be worth 6.8bn, up from 6.0bn last year. Today it’s saying this year’s bonus pool will be worth 7bn, down from 7.3bn last year.

Regardless of the miraculous retrospective increase in last year’s bonuses, this year’s will clearly be disappointing. And people at BarCap and Nomura may stand to be disappointed the most.

“I am looking at BarCap with an Uzi,” says the senior consultant at one City search firm. “It’s their turn to take a hit on bonuses this year. They really need to pay their fixed income people, a lot of whom were disappointed in 2009, but they’ve spent hundreds of millions building investment banking and equities and have got a massive overhang of cost.”

At Nomura, the head of another fixed income search firm says the situation may be even worse. “They’ve hired a lot of people on large guarantees this year,” he points out [Steve Ashley, Chris Fleming, Henrik Melph, Scott Friedlander, Guy Cornelius and others]. “But they don’t have the revenues to show for it. They’re paying above market rates, but have a below market business.”

Analysts at JPMorgan are predicting a second quarter loss for Nomura as trading revenues slump. In the second quarter, accrued compensation expenses across the bank were down 12%, despite the addition of more than 700 senior investment bankers in the US and 130 in Europe. It doesn’t look good.

Back to BarCap

Nomura doesn’t pay its bonuses until April, which will give its people time to come to terms with the situation. At BarCap, payment will come sooner – in February.

Having ramped up costs by expanding in ECM, investment banking and equities, but with little to show for it yet, BarCap is under pressure to show it can keep its costs under control. The ceremonial removal of several hundred IT and operations staff appears to have been in aid of this.

So what happens when it comes to paying legacy fixed income staff for 2010? Headhunters are predicting deep disappointment. Others are not so sure.

“Barclays is investment mode,” says Dirk Hoffman Becking at Bernstein Research. “The management isn’t looking at revenues this quarter or next quarter, they’re looking at two or three years time. They need to convince investors that they can make this pay long term.”

Hoffman Becking says BarCap can afford to pay in 2010. “The cost income ratio at BarCap is 52.3%; the industry average is 70%,” he points out.