Nomura Holdings Inc, Japan's biggest brokerage, plans to strengthen its investment banking business by winning more equities deals in five Asian countries including India and China, its head of global investment banking said on November 21.
The brokerage already has some big equity deals in the pipeline from those countries, which also include South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, Takashi Yanagiya told Reuters in an interview.
"All of them are major deals and the companies involved are also well known, big players," Yanagiya said without providing specific details.
Nomura grabbed the No 1 spot in Japan's equity league table in the January-September period, handling 71 deals - including the sale of $4.27 billion of shares in Central Japan Railway Co - for a total $7.49 billion, according to data from research firm Dealogic.
The company's Asian presence remained small, however, and it ranked 22nd in the Asia-Pacific league excluding Japan, with market share of a mere 0.57 percent, the data showed.
Helping to raise its profile in global investment banking, Nomura has been hired to lead-manage a $690.6 million flotation of American depository receipts (ADRs) by South Korea's POSCO, the world's fifth-biggest steel maker, in Tokyo.
The ADRs of POSCO, the first South Korean firm to list in Tokyo, will start trading on Tuesday.
Nomura, along with Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, is also managing Indian bank ICICI Bank Ltd's offering of American depository shares (ADS) worth $1.4 billion, according to a regulatory filing. Nomura has also managed a number of POWLs (public offerings without listing) by foreign firms including Indian information technology company Infosys Technologies.