Nomura eyes stake in Lehman

Saturday 06th September, 04:32 PM JST

TOKYO —

The president of Japan’s biggest brokerage house Nomura Holdings said the company was considering buying a stake in troubled U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers, a report said Saturday.

The move would be part of a plan to spend more than 200 billion yen on investment in U.S. and European financial institutions Kenichi Watanabe said in an interview in the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Lehman “is one of the candidates in which we plan to invest,” Watanabe said without elaborating.

A number of overseas banks and securities firms are said to be considering bidding for a stake in Lehman, which suffered billions of dollars in writedowns and credit losses amid the meltdown in U.S. subprime mortgages sector.

A news report from Seoul said the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) had offered to buy a 25% stake in Lehman for more than $4 billion.

Japan’s largest banking group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, has denied a news report that it was considering bidding for a stake in Lehman, which will report third quarter results next week.

Wire reports

7 Comments

rajakumar at 05:09 PM JST - 6th September

Nomura should get stake in Lehman,it help them do more business globally.
JohnArbis at 12:04 AM JST - 7th September

Japanese companies should stay away from NY type firms. Long term relationships never work out.
LIBERTAS at 08:30 AM JST - 7th September

No screaming from the protectionists, fancy that!
Hughgarse at 10:16 AM JST - 8th September

No screaming from the protectionists, fancy that!

What could they say anyway?.. LBs are fooked big time and need the extra cash injection.. Plus, at $16 per share, its a steal!
rjdsr at 11:43 AM JST - 8th September

Have to wonder how many shares Horie still holds.
Altria at 01:08 PM JST - 8th September

I bet they're going to drive it home only to find out they're bought a lehman.
rjdsr at 07:28 AM JST - 15th September

Why would anyone buy into this when there are plenty of good investments out there? This firm did business with unsavory characters in Japan, and thus was ignored by most legit businesses.

Hughgarse, $16 was a steal??? Our hedge fund was still shorting them at $9 we shorted them all the way down from $140 a share when we saw their accounting - the firm isn't worth more than about $2.50 a share right now. They have no assets whatsoever and nothing but debt. Their brand equity is now worthless.