Nomura upbeat on profit rebound overseas
TOKYO: Nomura Holdings Inc chief executive officer Koji Nagai is confident that Japan’s biggest brokerage will sustain a rebound in overseas profit this fiscal year as global financial-market turmoil subsides and cost cuts take hold.
“The storm has passed, but the skies aren’t clear yet,” said Nagai at an investment forum hosted by the securities firm.
He said the company was on course to achieve 50 billion yen (RM1.97 billion) of pre-tax profit abroad in the year ending March next year, a goal that it scrapped the previous fiscal year.
Nomura has earned 40.1 billion yen outside of Japan in the first six months alone after enjoying a rebound in fixed-income trading and eliminating hundreds of jobs in Europe and the United States.
The firm posted six straight years of losses overseas as it struggled to build a global franchise after purchasing Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc’s Asian and European businesses during the 2008 financial crisis.
Nagai said in a February interview that it was impossible to predict when the firm would become profitable overseas because of worldwide market volatility. Nomura Holdings CEO says the company is on course to
Japan’s surprise introduction of negative interest rates, an oil slump and mounting concerns over the health of European banks were among factors battering the nation’s financial firms at the time.
“There’s no point discussing such topics during this rainstorm, unfortunately,” said Nagai.
“That’s something we can talk about in normal times. We have to monitor the situation carefully under these circumstances.”
Shares of financial firms have rallied recently on speculation the US President-elect Donald Trump will pursue a stimulative fiscal policy and ease banking regulations. Nomura has jumped 19 percent since the election, which also triggered a weakening of the yen and a 12-day rally in Japan’s Topix stock index.
Separately, Nomura said it’s considering investing 10 billion yen in startups as part of an initiative to promote innovation in Japan.
The company is teaming up with Nomura Research Institute Ltd and Nomura Real Estate Holdings Inc on an “accelerator” programme to identify and support ventures, it said in a statement. The programme would start at the end of the year, it said. Bloomberg