Nomura says to cut up to 1,000 staff in London

By Junko Fujita

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese brokerage house Nomura Holdings said it would axe up to 1,000 staff in London in its first big job cuts since it bought parts of failed Lehman Brothers, adding to a wave of lay-offs in the global financial industry.

The decision to cut as much as 22 percent of its London staff follows an internal review after the purchase of the Asian, European and Middle Eastern assets of Lehman Brothers, Nomura said in an e-mailed statement on Thursday.

"This will ensure that the company remains competitive in the current market conditions, and establishes the right cost base going forward," Japan's biggest brokerage said.

Nomura has joined its global peers, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, which have cut more than 100,000 jobs since September.

"This is a natural move," said Azuma Ohno, a brokerage analyst at Credit Suisse Securities in Japan. "Once Nomura bought Lehman, it cannot continue Japanese-style life-time employment. It needs to be flexible in costs to be profitable."

Nomura said this week the purchase of parts of Lehman Brothers would help the Japanese brokerage achieve its profit target despite poor financial market conditions.

The acquisition has increased Nomura's London head count to 4,500.

The brokerage said it expected to reach its pretax profit target of 500 billion yen (3.7 billion pounds) for the year ending March 2011 because of the positive effect of the Lehman acquisition.

Nomura expects to spend $2 billion (1.35 billion pound) on the acquisition, including payments to employees of the failed Wall Street rival to encourage them to stay with Nomura.