Nomura Holdings Inc. said Friday it swung to a net loss in the January-March period, its first quarterly loss in five quarters, as the coronavirus pandemic dented global financial markets and it booked unrealized losses on its securities holdings.

The parent company of Nomura Securities Co. said it posted a group net loss of 34.48 billion yen ($324 million) in the three months ended March 31, tumbling from 844 million yen in profit a year earlier.

The company booked a loss of 19.58 billion yen in securities it holds and investment-related operations, logging its first loss for a three-month period since the October-December quarter in 2018.

Group revenue in the fiscal fourth quarter fell 21.1 percent from a year earlier to 237.47 billion yen.

Nomura did not disclose its earnings outlook for the current business year through March 2021, citing uncertainty in financial markets.

In the fiscal year ended March, Nomura Holdings returned to profitability, posting a group net profit of 217 billion yen after suffering the first group net loss in a decade of 100.44 billion yen on a goodwill impairment charge the previous year.

The bottom line was partly lifted by a one-time profit of 73.3 billion yen from selling part of its stake in the Nomura Research Institute.

Group revenue grew 15.3 percent to 1.29 trillion yen in the last fiscal year from the previous year.

==Kyodo

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