Nomura Plans to Cut More than 100 Jobs in Wholesale Unit

Nomura, one of Japan’s largest brokerages, might be close to cutting over 100 jobs in its European and American operations, following consistently disappointing financial results, according to a report from Bloomberg.

On Thursday the news outlet reported that the Japanese firm was planning to cut dozens of jobs across its trading and investment-banking business in Europe and the United States, citing people familiar with the matter.

More than 100 traders and bankers might lose their positions at Nomura, with the bulk of the reductions likely to come from the firm's European business, which has lost billions of dollars over the past decade, the sources said.

Market participants have been expecting cuts from Nomura for a while now, considering the firm’s struggle to achieve profits abroad. In an earlier interview with the news outlet in December, the CEO of Nomura, Koji Nagai, highlighted that the three thousand staff count in Europe was probably too big.

Nomura’s Situation Continues to Worsen

Since then, Nomura’s situation has not improved, with the Japanese bank reporting its financial results for the third quarter of its 2019 fiscal year in January, marking the second consecutive quarter where the firm reported a loss.

As Finance Magnates reported, during its third quarter, Nomura achieved a net income loss of ¥95.3 billion ($876.64 million). This is a notable drop, considering the same quarter in 2017 had a profit of ¥88 billion. It’s also below market expectations, as analysts surveyed by Reuters expected an average profit estimate of ¥30.9 billion.

The poor performance was mostly thanks to a large write off in its wholesale division, which includes Nomura’s brokerage and investment bank. During the third quarter, the unit posted the second biggest loss for the company, both on a quarterly and yearly comparison, behind its asset management division.

The news outlet reached out to Kenji Yamashita, a Tokyo-based spokesman for Nomura, who declined to comment.