Nomura Holdings Inc unveiled plans to cut US$1 billion of costs at its struggling wholesale business, as Japan’s largest securities firm embarks on yet another sweeping overhaul of its international operations.
The company did not give specifics on job cuts as it presented the effort to investors yesterday after the market close in Tokyo.
However, the axe has already begun to fall, with about 100 positions being culled in Europe, the Middle East and Africa on top of reductions in Hong Kong and Singapore, people with knowledge of the matter said.
“To restart this company” as a new Nomura, “I have to commit myself to proceeding quickly with efforts to build a muscular base,” Nomura chief executive officer Koji Nagai told investors.
“We realized that as long as we continue with the way we have done business thus far, Nomura won’t be able to get itself out of the current situation,” he said.
Nagai’s comments, along with the ambitious cost-cutting target, amount to a tacit acknowledgment that Nomura’s years of stop-start international expansions have largely been fruitless. Operations outside Japan have lost money for four straight quarters, with Europe a leading headache for Nagai.
The job cuts in Europe would mostly target rates and credit traders in London, one of the people said, asking not to be identified as the numbers are not public.
Eight out of nine employees in the Singapore equity research operation have been let go, the people said.
Nomura also cut at least 10 jobs at its equities business in Hong Kong, one of the people said.
Nomura said it would “right-size” its wholesale business, which is made up of investment banking and global markets divisions.
Most of the wholesale cost cuts would be completed by March next year, it said.
The company also said it would eliminate at least 30 of its 156 retail brokerage branches dotted across Japan.
Nagai commissioned the review in January after the bank posted its biggest quarterly loss since the global financial crisis, thanks partly to a goodwill writedown on its 2008 acquisition of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc assets — the deal that hobbled the bank’s European operations.
Nomura also said it would simplify its corporate structure by reducing the number of functions by half. Excluding the internal audit team, Nomura has 10 corporate areas ranging from finance to risk management and compliance. These are to be streamlined into five to avoid duplication and reduce costs.
NEW MARKET: The partnership opens up India to the Dutch company, which already has a strong hold in the semiconductor market of South Korea, Taiwan and China ASML Holding NV entered into a partnership agreement with Tata Electronics Pvt Ltd aimed at ramping up India’s goal to develop domestic chip-manufacturing capabilities. The Dutch company’s technology would help power Tata Electronics’ planned 300 millimeter (mm) semiconductor foundry in Gujarat, according to a joint statement from the two companies on Saturday. The signing of a memorandum of understanding coincides with a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Netherlands, which is looking to deepen bilateral relations with New Delhi. ASML, whose top customers include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co, makes lithography machines that can print
ROUGH RECORDS: Bonds in Japan, as well is in New Zealand, Australia and the US, are seeing the effects of a nervy market as stock exchanges across Asia edge down A deepening slump in Japanese government bonds added fuel to the selloff in global debt markets as rising oil prices stoked inflation fears and pushed yields to multi-decade highs. Japan’s 30-year yield yesterday surged as much as 20 basis points to the highest level since the tenor’s debut in 1999, before paring some of the move. Shorter-maturity Japanese debt was also under pressure, underscored by weak demand at a sale of five-year notes that offered a record-high coupon of 2 percent. Concerns over inflation and government spending rippling through markets including the US, Australia and New Zealand are being amplified in Japan,
The US has cleared about 10 Chinese firms to buy Nvidia Corp’s second-most powerful artificial intelligence (AI) chip, the H200, but not a single delivery has been made so far, three people familiar with the matter said, leaving a major technology deal in limbo as chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) seeks a breakthrough in China this week. Huang, who was not initially listed in a White House delegation to Beijing, joined the trip after an invitation from US President Donald Trump, a source said. Trump picked him up in Alaska en route to a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping
Wall Street is licking its chops over an unprecedented slate of massive initial public offerings (IPOs) set to arrive in the coming months, beginning with Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) next month. That is expected to be followed by artificial intelligence (AI) rivals OpenAI and Anthropic PBC. The trio of mega listings, each eyeing valuations around US$1 trillion or more, constitutes a heady period of elevated risk and reward. SpaceX is targeting an IPO that would raise up to US$80 billion — about double the funds generated from all IPOs last year. OpenAI and Anthropic are eyeing IPOs raising US$60 billion. “We’re
RSS