Nomura Posts $7.3B Loss on Lehman Costs

By Yuri Kageyama

TOKYO -- Nomura Holdings(NMR Quote), Japan's top brokerage, suffered one of the largest annual losses in Japanese corporate history, hit by slumping stock markets and the cost of acquiring part of collapsed investment bank Lehman Brothers.

Tokyo-based Nomura said Friday its net loss for the fiscal year ended March 31 swelled to 709.4 billion yen ($7.3 billion) from 67.8 billion yen the year before.

The broker's loss, along with electronics maker Hitachi's(HIT Quote) projected red ink of about 700 billion yen, are among the worst ever recorded in Japan as the world's second-largest economy withers in the face of a collapse in global demand. Hitachi reports earnings May 12.

Shinko Research Institute has said the only annual loss surpassing such dismal numbers in Japanese corporate history is the 834.6 billion yen loss reported by telecommunications giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT Quote) for the fiscal year ending March 2002.

The last time Nomura had such massive red ink was in fiscal 1998, when it racked up a 397.5 billion yen loss.

For the fourth fiscal quarter, ending March 31, Nomura posted a net loss of 217.1 billion yen -- ballooning from a 153.9 billion yen loss a year earlier. Quarterly sales more than quadrupled to 99.2 billion yen from 21.5 billion yen the previous year.

Among the main causes of the annual loss was 230 billion yen in expenses for acquiring operations in Europe, Asia and the Middle East from Lehman Brothers, the storied U.S. investment bank that collapsed last year.