Nomura signals plan to hire more bankers in US to spur revenue

[TOKYO] Nomura Holdings Inc signalled plans to hire more investment bankers in the US as Japan's biggest brokerage seeks to spur revenue from abroad.

The company's investment-banking client base in the Americas has swelled more than four times in the past four years as bankers joined, Nomura told investors in Tokyo on Thursday. "Continuous investment" should lead to further revenue in the region, it said in a presentation that included a chart projecting rising staff numbers.

Chief Executive Officer Koji Nagai is rebuilding Nomura's overseas operations to make them profitable after cutbacks following its purchase of parts of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in 2008. The Tokyo-based firm wants 40 per cent of its revenue to come from overseas by March 2020, up from 30 per cent last fiscal year, the presentation showed.

Nomura is expanding in the US because it has the biggest fee pool, global investment banking head Kentaro Okuda told investors in Tokyo. The company aims to increase total investment-banking revenue to about US$2 billion in the next two to three years from 194 billion yen (US$1.6 billion) in the year ended March, he said.

"I want to cultivate clients in the region," he said. "If we become strong in the Americas, we can grow in Europe and Asia too."

Mr Okuda said in January that Nomura will recruit about 20 senior people in the US and Asia to boost its mergers and acquisitions business. The Japanese firm hired 15 senior bankers in the Americas to cover about a half-dozen industries, it said in October.

BLOOMBERG