Nomura raises profit target in recovery from Archegos blow-up

[TOKYO] Nomura Holdings raised its pretax income target for the financial year ending March 2023 by 14 per cent, with the bulk of growth expected to come from its wholesale division as it moves on from the implosion of Archegos Capital Management.

Japan's biggest brokerage expects pretax income at its retail, investment management and wholesale divisions to rise to 320 billion yen (S$3.91 billion), up from a May 2020 target of 280 billion yen, chief executive officer Kentaro Okuda said in a speech during an Investor Day on Wednesday.

Income at Nomura's wholesale division, which suffered a US$2.9 billion hit from the collapse of Bill Hwang's family office Archegos in March, is expected to rise to 150 billion yen, more than double the 64.3 billion yen for the year ended March 2021. The bulk of the growth is likely to come from advisory, wealth management and private markets.

Mr Okuda apologised for the Archegos incident and said that as of May 10, the firm had closed more than 99 per cent of its trading positions related to the US incident. Only Credit Suisse Group suffered a bigger hit - US$5.5 billion - from dealings with the family office.

Separately, head of wholesale Steven Ashley, said Nomura is seeking to boost advisory revenue by 50 per cent and plans to hire more than 40 international relationship managers for its wealth division.

The firm is also targeting more than US$100 million in incremental revenues related to digital assets in coming years and sees that asset class near to a "tipping point" with increasing institutional adoption, Mr Ashley said.

Shares in Nomura were trading down 2.7 per cent as of 11.14am in Tokyo.

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