Nomura Asia Holding NV, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan’s leading financial service group Nomura Holdings Inc, yesterday secured a three-year syndicated loan of US$150 million from 13 domestic banks led by Taiwan Cooperative Bank (TCB, 合作金庫銀行).
“This was the first syndicated loan outside Japan raised by Nomura, which expects to build up a long-term partnership with Taiwanese financial institutions via the deal,” TCB chairman Liu Deng-cheng (劉燈城) told a signing ceremony in Taipei.
The banks oversubscribed the loan by 50 percent on the original request for a US$100 million loan, an indication that the domestic lenders recognized Nomura’s leading position in Japan’s financial market, TCB said in a statement.
Liu said that Nomura acted as an intermediate holding company for a majority of Nomura’s Asia ex-Japan entities, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, Vietnam and Australia.
The fund will be mainly used to fund the Japanese borrower’s operations in greater China and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region as part of its efforts to explore businesses outside Japan, the statement said.
“Taiwan is one of the key countries in our Asian businesses,” Kenji Yokoyama, senior managing director, Asia ex-Japan at Nomura, told the Taipei Times on the sidelines of the ceremony, adding that Taiwan has shown a great commitment to Japan.
“Considering syndicated facilities, this is the only one we have signed outside Japan,” he said. “The fund will be used for world-class services.”
Yokoyama said he hoped that with this syndicated facility, the company’s Asian revenues, excluding Japan, would increase three times in three years. He declined to provide an estimate.
Nomura operates offices in more than 30 countries and employs more than 25,000 people worldwide. Its services include brokerage, securities underwriting, corporate advisory and asset management, the statement said.
Other banks taking part in the syndicated loan include Jih Sun International Bank (日盛國際商業銀行), Taishin International Bank (台新國際商業銀行), Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行), Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行), China Development Industrial Bank (中華開發工業銀行), Bank of Panshin (板信商業銀行), Far Eastern International Bank (遠東國際商銀) and Yuanta Commercial Bank (元大商銀).
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