Friday, March 29

Nomura cuts 2025 profit target as banking turmoil dents expansion hopes


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TOKYO — Nomura Holdings Inc said on Thursday it cut its core pre-tax income target for the next financial year by a quarter as the global banking crisis hit its investment banking advisory business and derailed its offshore expansion plans.

Japan’s biggest brokerage and investment bank is now aiming for annual pre-tax income of 288 billion yen ($2.13 billion) for its three core divisions in the fiscal year ending in March 2025, down from the 350 billion yen to 390 billion yen range planned a year ago.

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That would compare with the 106.4 billion yen the three divisions – retail, investment management and wholesale – posted for the year through March 2023.

The revisions come as a global banking crisis roiled financial markets and hit Nomura’s investment banking business, which it had hoped would become one of the core profit drivers in its midterm plan.

However the guidance was higher than the average 242 billion yen forecast for company-wide pretax profit from three analysts surveyed by Refinitiv for the year to March 2025.

The weaker targets dim CEO Kentaro Okuda’s hopes to end a troubled history of occasional major financial hits followed by major restructurings. The last major overhaul took place in 2019, which included $1 billion in cost cuts and scaling back of some of its lower growth business in Europe.

The Japanese bank said it would aim to cut costs by 50 billion yen by March 2025, mainly by streamlining administrative and systems operations.

($1 = 135.0500 yen) (Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Sonali Paul)



financialpost.com