Nomura to exit US mortgage business, cut 400 jobs

TOKYO, Oct 15 (Reuters) Nomura Holdings, Japan's largest brokerage, said on Monday it would pull out of the U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) market and cut its U.S. work force by about 400, or 31 percent, to 900.

Restructuring charges and losses from its RMBS business are expected to force Nomura to post a group pretax loss of about 40-60 billion yen (0-1 million) for the July-September period, the company said.

The planned restructuring will result in a total charge of about 15 billion yen, but reduce its annual expenses by 25 billion yen, it said.

The company had been running down its balance of residential mortgage-backed securities, and had said it may pull out of the mortgage business as part of a reorganisation of its U.S operations.

In the second quarter through September, Nomura cut its U.S.

RMBS exposure to about 48 billion yen from 266 billion yen.

That has since shrunk to 14 billion yen, only 100 million yen of which is subprime-related, Nomura said.

Prior to the announcement, shares in Nomura closed down 0.5 percent at 2,080 yen, underperforming the Nikkei average, which gained 0.2 percent.

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