Nomura Holdings says Madoff-linked exposure at 27.5 billion yen+

TOKYO, Dec. 15 Kyodo - Japan's largest securities house, Nomura Holdings Inc., announced Monday that its exposure to a U.S. hedge fund run by Bernard Madoff, arrested last week on suspicion of crafting a $50 billion fraud scam, amounts to about 27.5 billion
yen.

In a statement, Nomura said the impact of its exposure on its financial capital
is ''limited'' but gave no details on the scale of losses it may incur.
The revelation came as Nomura, which recently acquired parts of failed U.S.
investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., addresses heavy losses from
credit, derivatives and equities trading as well as the costs of the Lehman
deal.
Financial Services Agency Commissioner Takafumi Sato indicated later in the day
that most Japanese financial institutions are unlikely to have any major
exposure to the hedge fund.
''At this moment, we do not have information that domestic financial
institutions hold huge investment balances regarding this case,'' Sato told a
news conference.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Madoff, a former chairman
of the board of directors at the Nasdaq Stock Market, with a multibillion
dollar Ponzi scheme, or a pyramid scam, involving his investment advisory
business.
Madoff, who established his investment firm Bernard L. Madoff Securities LLC in
1960, reportedly may have duped some of the biggest players in financial
industries across the United States, Europe and Japan with his scheme.
==Kyodo
2008-12-15 22:38:27