Nomura gets a lift from alcohol

THE sale of Nomura's British pubs helped the Japanese broker remain in the black last year. Profits almost trebled in the fourth quarter after it sold the chain to Enterprise Inns for £2.bn.

But broking sales and commission income dived 14% in the year and net annual profits were down 44% at 102.76bn yen (£564bn). Profits in the three months to the end of March rose 270% to 74.2bn yen.

Nomura's huge retail sales chain helped protect it from the carnage wreaked on smaller rivals. Daiwa Securities and Nikko Cordial turned in heavy losses last week.

Tokyo analysts had forecast that Nomura would have weathered the Japanese storm, partly because of the windfall profits from the sale of its British pubs chain.

The diversification from broking to bars may have looked strange when the company started building the pubs portfolio in 1997. However, it finished in triumph last month when a consortium led by Enterprise Inns paid Nomura £2.1bn for 4,189 pubs, leaving the Japanese house with just Wizard Inns in the pubs sector.

Nomura snapped up the 3,300-strong Unique group from Courage and Grand Metropolitan in September 1997 for £1.2bn and bought the Voyager chain of 990 pubs from Bass in March 2001 for £625bn.