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Nomura to Cut About 100 Jobs at Its Troubled European Business

Nomura to Cut About 100 Jobs at Its Troubled European Business

(Bloomberg) -- Nomura Holdings Inc. will fire about 100 workers at its troubled European business as Japan’s biggest brokerage embarks on its latest attempt to achieve sustained profitability overseas, a person familiar with the matter said.

Most of the job cuts will target rates and credit traders at Nomura’s London-based Europe, Middle East and Africa division, said the person, who requested anonymity as the numbers aren’t final. The Japanese brokerage plans to reduce costs at its so-called flow businesses in the EMEA region by 50 percent as part of a sweeping range of job cuts, Co-Chief Operating Officer Kentaro Okuda said in a presentation Thursday.

Nick Probert, a spokesman for the bank, declined to comment.

The Japanese bank has struggled to generate profits in Europe ever since it bought Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s operations there in 2008. Chief Executive Officer Koji Nagai pushed through about 50 job cuts in London in July, letting go some of the firm’s most senior traders, and signaled in a December interview that more were on the way. Nomura’s plan to end the status of its office in the U.K. capital as a global booking hub also means the current 3,000-strong workforce in the region may be “a little large,” the CEO said at the time.

Nomura intends to exit high-yield bond trading in both EMEA and the Americas under the cost-reduction plan, according to Okuda’s presentation today. The Japanese firm will also “downscale” its G10 FX, emerging markets and flow credit businesses while seeking to “optimize” its G10 rates business, the presentation shows.

To contact the reporter on this story: Donal Griffin in London at dgriffin10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ambereen Choudhury at achoudhury@bloomberg.net, Keith Campbell, Marion Dakers

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