JAPAN’S Ministry of Finance plans to temporarily exclude Nomura Holdings from taking part in government debt auctions after the firm admitted to manipulating the bond futures market, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The ministry plans to suspend Nomura from the primary group of Japanese government bond dealers for a month from Oct 15, the sources said, asking not to be identified. An announcement is set to be made later, the sources added.
The action is another setback to Nomura after the revelations led several companies including Toyota Finance to take their bond underwriting business elsewhere. As one of the biggest players in government bond auctions, Nomura’s suspension will increase the burden on other bidders.
“The weight of other brokerages will increase if it leaves,” said Takashi Fujiwara, chief fund manager at Resona Asset Management’s fixed-income investment division in Tokyo. “There is a particular concern that there is an oversupply of super-long-term bonds, and that liquidity may decline.”
Still, with interest rates on an upward trend and demand strong, there is unlikely to be any big disruption to the market, according to Yuuki Fukumoto, senior financial researcher at NLI Research Institute.
Nomura ranked fourth among primary dealers by successful bids weighted by duration in the six months to September. Primary dealers are given access to ministry officials in return for an obligation to bid for and purchase a certain amount of bonds at each auction. The group had 19 members as at December, according to the ministry’s website.
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Shares of Nomura erased gains, trading 0.7 per cent lower at 1.52 pm in Tokyo.
A spokesperson for Nomura declined to comment. Finance ministry representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
Nomura admitted to Japan’s financial regulator that an employee manipulated government bond futures by placing large orders without intending to buy or sell all of them, Bloomberg News reported this week. The nation’s securities watchdog had earlier recommended a 21.8 million yen (S$191,469) fine against the company for the 2021 breach.
The finance ministry’s move was expected given past cases of bond market manipulation. Citigroup was fined 133 million yen in 2019 and suspended from the primary group of dealers. A year earlier, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group’s securities venture with Morgan Stanley received a 218 million yen penalty and was also suspended from the group. The venture was also dropped as an underwriter of several corporate bond deals.
There have been bright spots. Nomura said it won the role as arranger of the Tokyo municipal government’s planned green-blue bond issuance worth 10 billion yen, according to a statement on Thursday (Oct 10). The instruments generally finance green projects as well as those that help protect or revive the world’s oceans and waterways. The firm is also one of the joint lead managers for Tokyo Metro’s marquee initial public offering. BLOOMBERG
