Japan's largest securities company, Nomura Holdings Inc, said yesterday that its net profit in the year to March fell 43.4 percent to ?102.8 billion (US$803 million) because of a weak domestic share market.
"Brokerage commissions amounted to ?97.5 billion, down 27 percent because of the stagnant Japanese equities market," the company said in a statement.
Nomura's pre-tax profit fell 36.4 percent to ?192.3 billion after revenue dropped 13.7 percent to ?1.122 trillion.
The company blamed a 15.1 percent fall in underwriting commissions to ?60.6 billion on a decrease in initial public offerings and other issues of new shares.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange's Nikkei-225 index closed the year to March down 15.2 percent from a year earlier.
Nomura earned ?146.1 billion in the group's merchant banking trading division, up 181.9 percent, thanks to proceeds from sales of selling pub chains and companies invested by the London-based Principal Finance Group.
Principal Finance, headed by private equity chief Guy Hands, became an independent fund as of March 27.
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