(16 March 2021 – Japan) Nomura Holdings is planning to establish a new team that helps both public and private companies raise cash through non-traditional means.
Led by Shohei Takahashi, the “Structured Finance and Solutions” group currently has about 20 people and will start operating on April 1. Takahashi is experienced in bond underwriting and fixed-income trading.
The team, which sits within Nomura Securities, will look beyond stock offerings, corporate debt issuance and other conventional areas of corporate finance as new avenues of growth including focusing on unlisted securities. Products the group is expecting to work on include:
- Structures like the “Model AA” shares in Toyota Motor Corp. that carried voting rights and were priced at a premium to the common stock and required a five-year lock-in period
- Securitising intellectual property rights and other assets that are not widely used for fund raisings
- Security token offerings
“We ought to focus more on creating products that satisfy customers’ needs to ensure our survival,” said Nomura senior corporate managing director for investment banking Yosuke Inaida. “I’m now on the financiers’ side of the field. I want to somehow help match what they offer with the level of risk investors really want to take.”