TOKYO (BLOOMBERG) -- Nomura Holdings cut dozens of jobs at its US investment bank, people with knowledge of the matter said, joining several rivals that are starting to retrench as the coronavirus pandemic eats into revenue.
The firm notified some workers on Tuesday, according to the people, who asked not be identified because the headcount reduction isn't public. Less than 10 per cent of the investment banking staff in the US are affected, the people said.
The cuts are among the first under new chief executive officer Kentaro Okuda, who since taking the reins in April has said that an existing 140 billion yen (S$1.84 billion) restructuring programme under his predecessor is no longer enough. Japan's biggest brokerage has struggled to sustain profits abroad, and the task is getting harder now that the outbreak is hammering the global economy.
Nomura, which posted a surprise loss in the first three months of 2020, is set to release fiscal first-quarter results later on Wednesday. Mr Okuda, 56, said last month that he ordered managers to review expenses in the wake of the pandemic and will consider cutting office space.
The job cuts are separate from reductions stemming from the closing of the Tokyo-based company's Instinet equity-research division, announced earlier this month. Nomura had 26,629 employees worldwide as of March, including 2,120 in the Americas.
Lawton King, a spokesman for Nomura, declined to comment.
Shares of Nomura opened 1.1 per cent lower on Wednesday morning in Tokyo, taking this year's decline to 15 per cent.
Earlier this year, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup pledged to preserve jobs as workers grappled with fallout from the pandemic.
But Cantor Fitzgerald said in April it would shrink its workforce "to position the firm for the uncertain macroeconomic conditions." Wells Fargo & Co is preparing to cut thousands of jobs starting later this year, and HSBC Holdings in June resumed a plan to cut as many as 35,000 jobs, three months after the coronavirus outbreak forced it to pause a long-awaited overhaul.
