Japan’s Nomura Q1 net profit jumps on strong domestic stock market

TOKYO (Reuters) -Nomura Holdings Inc, Japan’s biggest brokerage and investment bank, on Tuesday reported a jump in first-quarter net profit, driven by a strong stock market performance at home.

Its April-June profit came in at 23.33 billion yen ($163.42 million) versus 1.696 billion yen a year earlier, when fears of slowing global economic growth sent financial markets into a tailspin and forced investment portfolio writedowns at Nomura.

But the profit level is still subdued compared with Nomura’s core pre-tax income target of 288 billion yen for the year to March 2025, a bullish goal for CEO Kentaro Okuda who has faced three years of profit declines since taking the top job in 2020.

Renewed focus on Japanese stocks, driven by rising wages and corporate governance reform in the country, helped Nomura lure money from global investors.

Inflows into its core investment trusts and alternatives pushed up assets under management to 76.1 trillion yen as of the end of June, up from 67.3 trillion yen three months ago.

Nomura’s wholesale division, which houses its investment banking and trading businesses, posted the first profit in three quarters.

The investment banking business saw signs of recovery with some major deals including Pattern Energy Group’s sale of its Japanese assets to NTT Group and JERA.

($1 = 142.7600 yen)