Nomura raises top executives’ pay to highest in over a decade

NOMURA Holdings increased pay for its top executives to the highest in more than a decade, as Japan’s biggest brokerage posted a record annual profit on the back of the nation’s retail investment boom.

Compensation paid in the year ended March to the company’s seven executive officers totaled 4.6 billion yen (S$41.3 million), up 3 per cent from the previous year when there were eight such officers, according to a notice for a planned annual shareholders meeting next month. On average their pay rose 18 per cent. 

Chief executive officer Kentaro Okuda is among the executive officers along with Christopher Willcox, who oversees investment banking and securities trading. The raise came even after some executives including Okuda took voluntary pay cuts for a pair of scandals that surfaced in the period. 

The Tokyo-based firm earned a record 340.7 billion yen profit last fiscal year as the return of inflation to Asia’s second-largest economy energised investors.

Pretax income at Willcox’s wholesale division hit a 15-year high as global securities trading rebounded and cost controls improved. Dealmaking got a boost from Japan’s corporate governance overhaul.

Cash bonuses for the executive officers rose 88 per cent to 2.3 billion yen, while base salaries grew slightly to 607 million yen. Compensation includes stock awards as well.

Nomura is in expansion mode, having recently clinched a deal to buy Macquarie Group’s US and European public asset management business.

The brokerage is also weighing a return to offering cash prime-brokerage services in the US and Europe – businesses it largely exited four years ago when it lost US$2.9 billion tied to the collapse of Archegos Capital Management.

Last year’s results were blemished by revelations of bond market manipulation and charges of attempted murder against a former employee. CEO Okuda and other executives volunteered to return a portion of their pay for several months following the incidents. BLOOMBERG