Nomura To Close Europe Equity Business, Cut American Jobs

Nomura Holdings, Japan’s biggest brokerage, is expected to announce Tuesday the closure of its European equity business, according to media reports. As the company tries to cut costs and improve its profitability, it is also expected to cull about 1,000 jobs, including some from its U.S. operations.

At the end of 2016, Nomura had 3,433 employees in Europe and 2,501 in the Americas. Other than closing its Europe equity operations, which will lead to automatic job cuts, the brokerage is also expected to lay off about 20 percent of its staff in the Americas, according to Bloomberg, which cited unidentified sources.

In 2008, during the height of the financial crisis, Nomura had acquired the Asian and European assets of failed U.S. investment firm Lehman Brothers in a bid to expand its operations overseas. But the acquisition backfired and the Lehman acquisition proved costly, and Nomura has been trying to cut costs in Europe for years.

In the Americas, where Nomura’s operations are spread across Brazil, Canada, Colombia and the U.S., Nomura has posted pretax losses for the past six consecutive quarters, the Wall Street Journal reported.

According to Nikkei, which also cited unidentified sources, the job cuts — which could be implemented as early as this week — will be across a wide range of posts, including analysts, traders and administrative staff.

In a separate move that has nothing to do with downscaling its overseas operations, Nomura is also expected to cut 20 to 30 jobs in areas other than investment banking in its Asian operations, the Journal reported. The firm employed 6,853 in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, as of Dec. 31, 2015.

Most stock markets have performed poorly since the start of 2016 and Nomura’s move is seen as a part of its effort to curtail losses from its overseas operations. Other major global investment banks have been affected as well, with firms like Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley all announcing job cuts in recent months.

Shares of Nomura rose sharply in Tokyo and were trading more than 8 percent higher Tuesday afternoon. The broader Nikkei 225 Index, in comparison, was up just over 1 percent.