Nomura's full-year loss touches $ 7.2 bn

Japanese financial services major Nomura Holdings today saw its net loss widen to 709 billion yen (about $7.22 billion) for the year ended March 31, as acquisition costs of Lehman Brothers and writedowns weighed heavily on the company's bottomline.   

Nomura's loss widened to 709 billion yen for the year ended March 31, 2009 whereas the same stood at 67.8 billion yen in the year-ago period.   

The Japanese entity which had snapped up the Asian, Middle Eastern and European businesses of the bankrupt Lehman Brothers, raked in revenues to the tune of 664.51 billion yen, a fall of 58 per cent as compared to the same period a year ago. 

In the comparable period, the revenues stood at 1,593 billion yen, the firm said in a statement.    

Nomura incurred one-off expenses worth 230 billion yen related to acquisition of Lehman Brothers' operations and impairment charges on affiliates.   

For the full year ended March 31, 2009, the entity had writedowns of $150 billion yen in connection with merchant banking and real estate related illiquid assets.    

In addition, there was a trading loss to the tune of 150 billion yen.