Nomura CEO Koji Nagai. File picture: Yuya Shino, Reuters Nomura CEO Koji Nagai. File picture: Yuya Shino, Reuters
Tokyo - Nomura replaced its chief operating officer and top finance official as part of a management reshuffle at Japan’s biggest brokerage.
Tetsu Ozaki, 58, will succeed Atsushi Yoshikawa as COO on April 1, the Tokyo-based company said on Tuesday in a statement on its website. Takumi Kitamura, 49, will replace Shigesuke Kashiwagi as CFO.
The new managers face the challenge of helping Chief Executive Officer Koji Nagai, 57, return Nomura to profit abroad and sustain income growth at home as the benefits of Abenomics begin to fade. Global financial-market volatility, stricter banking regulations and an economic slowdown are putting pressure on earnings at the world’s biggest securities firms.
Yoshikawa, 61, has served in the post since Nagai became CEO in August 2012, when both of their predecessors resigned in the wake of a probe into insider-information leaks. Kashiwagi, 56, has been CFO for three years.
Ozaki, who joined Nomura in 1982, has been wholesale CEO since April 2014. Investment-banking head Kentaro Okuda and global markets chief Steven Ashley will share Ozaki’s current position when the management changes take effect next month. They will keep their present roles.
BLOOMBERG