Nomura International Plc (Europe)

ABOUT THIS COMPANY:

From Tokyo to the world

Nomura International plc is the U.K.-based subsidiary of Nomura Holdings, Japan’s largest securities group. Its 190 offices are located in 30 countries, including 15 offices in Europe and the Middle East. Best known in Japan as a domestic retail bank, Nomura has shown increasing interest in expanding its global operations. Worldwide, Nomura offers a full range of securities and investment banking services, including asset management, merchant banking, corporate advisory, derivatives, foreign exchange, sales and trading, research, and capital raising. In Europe, its focus is on securities brokerage services, underwriting, M&A advisory and asset management. The firm's roots go back to 1919 when Tokushichi Nomura founded the Osaka Nomura bank, giving rise to Osaka-based Nomura Securities, which spun off in 1925. Two years later, Nomura Securities became the first Japanese securities firm to open an overseas office. In 1946, the firm’s headquarters shifted to Tokyo, and five years later, it launched an investment management business. Nomura is credited with pioneering the use of investment trusts. It was also one of the first foreign-owned companies to gain membership on the London Stock Exchange. In 2007, Nomura paid US$1.2 billion to acquire Instinet, Inc., a major electronic trading services provider with 1,500 clients worldwide. And in 2008, after the spectacular collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers, Nomura swooped in to buy Lehman’s equities and investment banking operations in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The Asian businesses sold for £123 million (US$225 million), while the European and Middle East arms went for the nominal sum of—this isn’t a typo—£1.09 (US$2), which was not a bad deal, considering that Europe and Asia typically represented half of Lehman’s annual revenue. More recently, in 2012, the firm made headlines again. Amidst insider trading allegations against certain Nomura employees, Kenichi Watanabe resigned as CEO of Nomura and was succeeded by Koji Nagai, head of the bank’s securities unit. Today, the Nomura Group is a sprawling financial services network that encompasses Nomura Holdings and its many subsidiaries, as well as 20-plus group companies that provide everything from funds research to consulting to health care financing.