Nomura Holdings said it is pursuing further acquisitions in the United States to strengthen its investment management operations, building on last year’s $1.8 billion purchase of Macquarie’s U.S. and European public asset management businesses. Kentaro Okuda, chief executive of the firm, outlined the strategy at the company’s annual investor briefing in Tokyo.
Okuda described the recent Macquarie deal as a significant step in Nomura’s push for a larger global presence. "Having made this large U.S. investment, we’re in the market for companies or divisions with products that complement it," he said.
The Macquarie acquisition represented Nomura’s largest deal since it acquired assets of Lehman Brothers after the latter collapsed in 2008, although those assets were later written down. Okuda framed the current expansion and deal-seeking as part of a longer-term effort to make Nomura’s global activity more visible to stakeholders at home and abroad.
"Abroad we are seen as a global company, but in Japan people see us as a domestic firm," Okuda said. "We want to communicate to the general public and especially our customers in Japan, what kind of work we do and how much profit we are generating globally," he added.
Nomura disclosed a substantial lift in its medium-term profit outlook after reporting record profits over the last two years. The company increased its target by 50 percent, now aiming for at least 750 billion yen in income before tax for the year through March 2031. Within that target, Nomura is seeking to boost income from its investment management division to 150 billion yen in annual pretax profit by March 2031, up from a previous target of 100 billion yen.
Despite wider market concerns about private credit funds and a wave of redemption requests facing some global managers, Nomura intends to grow its private credit assets under management by a factor of 10 within its investment management business. The firm aims to have more than $5 billion in private credit AUM by the end of the fiscal year 2030-31, rising from $500 million in the year ended March 2026.
Hiroyasu Koike, head of investment management, emphasized the structure of Nomura’s private credit exposure. "Our private credit balance refers to the distribution of private credit held as investment products, so the risk we are taking on our own balance sheet is extremely limited," he said.
The company’s guidance was presented alongside an FX reference of $1 = 159.2500 yen.
Okuda’s remarks and the updated forecasts underscore Nomura’s dual objective: to be recognized internationally as a global investment bank while clarifying its overseas earnings contribution to domestic customers. The firm’s strategy combines organic growth through expanded product offerings and targeted M&A to augment its recent U.S. acquisition.
Nomura’s explicit focus on building investment management scale, particularly in private credit, positions the firm to pursue asset-gathering while limiting direct balance-sheet exposure according to management. How the firm executes on further U.S. deals and scales private credit AUM will be central to achieving the newly elevated profit targets.
Investors and market participants will likely watch Nomura’s M&A activity in the U.S., the pace of private credit fundraising, and the company’s ability to integrate complementary products into its existing platform as indicators of progress toward the March 2031 goals.