TOKYO :Nomura Holdings Inc on Tuesday reported a jump in first-quarter net profit as a strong Japanese stock market helped the country's biggest brokerage and investment bank attract money from global investors.
Nomura's April-June profit came in at 23.33 billion yen versus 1.696 billion yen a year earlier, when fears of slowing global economic growth hit financial markets and forced investment portfolio writedowns at the Japanese firm. In contrast to the strong gains at the retail business, Nomura's wholesale division, which houses its investment banking and trading businesses, posted a pretax profit of just 2.1 billion yen, down sharply from 25.3 billion yen a year earlier.Meanwhile, the investment banking business saw signs of recovery with some major deals including Pattern Energy Group's 300 billion yen sale of its Japanese assets to NTT Group and JERA.