By Antonbrug
TOKYO (Reuters) – The head of Nomura Holdings (NYSE:) apologized Tuesday after a former employee was charged last month with multiple crimes, including attempted murder and robbery, in what has become the latest public scandal for the Japanese brokerage.
CEO Kentaro Okuda apologized ahead of his presentation at an investor summit, where he said the company has room to cut costs by another 28 billion yen ($187 million) in the short to medium term.
The former employee, who provided asset management advice to private and corporate clients, was suspected of robbing a client in July and causing a fire in the client’s home, Nomura said in a press release.
Okuda and other executives will take a voluntary three-month salary reduction in response to the incident, Nomura said.
The incident is another blow to Nomura’s reputation after the company was fined 21.8 million yen ($145,000) and temporarily lost its status as a primary dealer of government bonds earlier this year due to a case of market manipulation involving the trading in bonds was involved.
Okuda’s efforts mark the latest part of Nomura’s multi-year strategy to reduce costs, increase return on equity and focus on stable businesses with high profits, leading the company to six consecutive quarters of net income growth through the end realized. from September this year.
The measures are in addition to Nomura’s existing plan to save 62 billion yen in costs in the short and medium term, including optimizing information technology across the group, outsourcing certain functions and reviewing office locations.
Okuda also said that Nomura is making steady progress towards the target he set in May last year of achieving a consistent return on equity of between 8% and 10%, for example through the growth of its low-risk businesses, including underwriting and advisory services.
At the heart of this strategy is Nomura’s global asset management business, which has tripled assets under management over the past four years.
The unit offers brokerage, asset management and lending products and has developed know-how comparable to global standards that Nomura now plans to use in its Japanese asset management unit, Okuda said.
($1 = 150.0200 yen)
