By Anton Bridge
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan’s top brokerage and investment bank, Nomura Holdings, on Wednesday reported a 101% increase in net profit on strong demand for equity offerings and mergers and acquisitions advisory services.
Nomura posted its seventh consecutive quarter of income growth as its wholesale division, which comprises its investment banking and global markets units, reinforced its comeback after several years of underperformance.
The company booked a healthy volume of commissions from mergers and acquisitions, while its equity capital markets business captured fees from companies’ disposals of their cross-shareholdings.
The global markets unit clocked a 39% rise in net revenue compared to the same period in the previous year on growth in all overseas regions, and especially in equity derivatives products in the Americas.
The segment’s performance indicates customers outside Japan were undeterred by a bond trading scandal that saw Nomura temporarily stripped of its status as a primary dealer of government bonds and fined 21.8 million yen by Japan’s securities watchdog last year.
Nomura’s results were dampened by its investment management division, which saw a 41% drop in income on the previous quarter due to reduced valuation gain on an investment compared with the previous quarter.
However inflows to asset management products remained robust, helping the segment grow income 21% year-on-year.
Nomura’s quarterly income was its highest since the first quarter of 2020 and follows strong performances last week from smaller rivals Daiwa and Mizuho Securities, which saw quarterly profit rise 64% and 340%, respectively.
Profit in the October-December period came in at 101.44 billion yen ($661.67 million) versus 50.55 billion yen a year earlier.
($1 = 153.3100 yen)
(Reporting by Anton Bridge; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman & Shri Navaratnam)
