July 27, 2002	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 16,1423

TOKYO, July 26: Japan’s largest brokerage Nomura Holdings Inc. said on Friday its pre-tax profit was more than halved in the first quarter to June.

Pre-tax profit shrank 65.3 per cent from a year earlier to $154.6 million due to a halving of revenue and an accounting change related to hedging activities.

Nomura’s net profit jumped 350.8 per cent to 117.8 billion yen because of the adoption of US accounting standards.

Nomura’s revenue in the June quarter fell 53.9 per cent to 217.0 billion yen due to the exclusion of contributions from London-based Principal Finance Group (PFG), which invests in pub chains and hotels.

PFG, headed by Nomura private equity chief Guy Hands, became an independent fund as of March 27.

Nomura slipped into the red in investment banking and merchant banking operations, incurring pre-tax loss of 545 million yen against a profit of 5.06 billion yen previously.

The main reason for the decrease was lower gains on equity investments, reflecting the stagnant Nasdaq markets, the firm said in a statement.

In the domestic retail business, pre-tax profit rose 34.3 per cent mainly due to an increase in selling commissions from medium-term notes and foreign currency bonds, the firm said.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Nikkei-225 index at the end of June was down 3.7 per cent from three months earlier.—AFP