Nomura Holdings, Inc. (NMR) Q4 2008 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's Nomura Holdings Fourth Quarter Operating Results For Fiscal Year Ended March 2008 Conference Call. Please be reminded that today's conference call is being recorded at the request of the hosting company. Should you have any objections, you may disconnect at this point in time. During the presentation, all the telephone lines are placed in listen-only mode. The questions-and-answer session will be held after the presentation. Please note that this telephone conference contains certain forward-looking statements and other projected results, which involve known and unknown risks, delays, uncertainties, and other factors not under the company's control, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from the results, performance or other expectations implied by these projections. Such factors include economic and market conditions, political events and investor sentiments, liquidity of secondary markets, level and volatility of interest rates, currency exchange rates, security valuations, competitive conditions, and price, number and timing of transactions. With that, we'd like to begin the conference. Mr. Masafumi Nakada, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for taking time out to join Nomura Holdings telephone conference call to review our financial results for the fiscal year ended March 2008. I am Masafumi Nakada, CFO of Nomura Holdings Inc. Let me start with page four of the presentation material. As announced in March, we introduced a new top management line-up on April 1st. We have made a fresh start with a focus on creating change, aiming for world-class competitiveness and acting with speed. For the fourth quarter, in response to the worst business environment due to the turmoil in the global credit market, top management has become directly engaged in the risk management issues. We have moved decisively to limit the future losses on the credit-related products. Please turn to page five. As a result of this, we booked a significant loss in the fourth quarter. For the full year ended March 31st, 2008, we posted income before income taxes of minus 64.6 billion yen and net income of minus 67.8 billion yen. The main causes over the business losses in the fourth quarter include increased credit provisions of around 132 billion yen for exposure to monoline insurers and an unrealized loss of about 22 billion yen in the U.S. CMBS-related business. On the other hand, Domestic Retail, Global Merchant Banking and Asset Management booked their third straight year over strong revenue and delivered stable profits during a very tough fourth quarter. Although, we recorded a loss for the full year, we have shareholders' equity of about 2 trillion yen, and the loss will have only a very limited impact on our solid financial base. That said, the current environment remains uncertain. We are moving to respond quickly and precisely to the declining business environment by cutting back…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. We have no questions, Mr. Nakada.

Thank you very much for your taking time. And that concludes today's conference call. Thank you.

Thank you. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.