Bumping along

27 April 2012 By Peter Thal Larsen Follow @Peter_TL

Earnings jumped in the last quarter, lifting the Japanese bank to a full-year profit. Healthier equity markets at home and better global trading both contributed, while past cost-cutting should help in the coming year. But Nomura’s weak returns mean it has much more to do.

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Nomura Holdings booked its biggest quarter of profit in over two years in the first three months of 2012. It was helped by stronger Japanese equity markets and higher global trading volumes. On April 27, the Japanese bank reported a net profit of 22.1 billion yen ($273 million) in the quarter, up 86 percent from the same period 12 months earlier.
The quarterly rebound helped Nomura to reverse previous quarterly losses and report a net profit of 11.6 billion yen for the full year, though this was 60 percent lower than in the year to March 2011.
Nomura’s core Japanese retail business reported a 15 percent jump in year-on-year pre-tax profit. But the bank’s asset management and wholesale arms respectively reported a 34 percent and 57 percent drop in year-on-year pre-tax profit.
The figures were boosted by Nomura’s decision last year to convert its Land and Building unit into a wholly-owned subsidiary. The business contributed pre-tax profit of 13.9 billion yen in the quarter. Nomura also generated a 9.9 billion yen pre-tax profit on unrealised gains in equity securities.
By 1045 GMT, Nomura shares were down 1.8 percent.

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