By Scott Murdoch
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Nomura Holdings Inc has cut 18 Asian banking jobs, most of them China-focused investment roles, as a result of a sharp slowdown in dealmaking activities, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
Japan’s top brokerage and investment bank last week laid off bankers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan, said the sources, declining to be identified as they are not authorised to speak to media.
A separate source with knowledge of the move said the cuts were not just for Asia, but also impacted Nomura’s international investment banking operations across the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“2022 saw a material deterioration in global investment banking fee pools and, as a result, we have had to reduce headcount in certain areas,” a Nomura statement said.
The layoffs at Nomura involve staff across multiple divisions within its investment banking function, as the bank had a year of almost muted dealmaking activity in the region, one of the two sources said.
The bank advised on $3.42 billion in equity capital market deals last year across the Asia Pacific, including its home base Japan, a sharp drop from $9.4 billion in 2021, according to Refinitiv data.
Each of the bank’s equities capital markets, debt capital markets, corporate finance and Southeast Asia coverage business divisions saw two to three workers made redundant, according to the two sources.
(Reporting by Selena Li and Scott Murdoch; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee, Tom Hogue and Kim Coghill)
