Shigesuke Kashiwagi
Management
This is Shigesuke Kashiwagi, CFO. I will now give you an overview of our financial results for the third quarter of the year ending March 2015 using the document titled Consolidated Results of Operations. Page two please. For the nine months till December, we booked net revenue of ¥1,169.7 billion, income before income taxes of ¥241.8 billion, and net income of ¥142.8 billion, close to the strong results in the same period last year. Fund inflows and market factors combined to drive up retail client assets to over ¥100 trillion, while assets under management in asset management reached a record high. For the third quarter, net revenue grew 14% from last quarter to ¥425 billion. Income before income taxes increased 57% to ¥116.1 billion, and net income was up 32% at ¥70 billion. Annualized ROE for the quarter was 10.6%. EPS was ¥18.72. Revenues and income before income taxes were both up quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year. Income before income taxes from our three business segments totaled ¥60.3 billion representing a 13% decline from last quarter. Retail and Asset Management both had a good quarter, while Wholesale profitability declined substantially due to slowdown in Fixed Income in EMEA and Americas. Segment other income before income taxes was ¥44.8 billion and we booked an ¥11 billion unrealized gain on investments being equity securities both of which boosted Group earnings. We benefited from higher mark-to-market valuations of shares held due to yen depreciation and higher share prices, while gains from credit spread changes also contributed to earnings. Today, we also resolved to conduct a share buyback program with an upper limit of 40 million shares and maximum total value of ¥30 billion. The share buyback, we announced last October with an upper limit of 40 million shares and ¥28 billion was completed between November 13 and January 16. We acquired 15.2 million shares for a total value of ¥10.2 billion. We decided to carry out that share buyback because we had sufficient capital and our share price was undervalued. To minimize the impact on our share price, we set a ceiling on the acquisition price and number of shares to be acquired per day and entrusted the acquisitions to a trust bank. However, the monetary easing announced by the BOJ on October 31st sent our share price spiking higher than expected, which meant we were not able to reach the upper limit of fee buyback program. The share buyback program resolved today consists of the 25 million shares left over from last time and 15 million additional shares for a total of 40 million shares. Of these 40 million shares, approximately 5 million will be used for stock options exercised in the future. The remaining 35 million shares will be used flexibly for various capital management options. Please turn to page four. In the box at the bottom of the page, you will find additional information regarding the ¥44.8 billion income before income taxes from segment Other. First, equity in earnings of affiliates of ¥18.2 billion was higher than normal. This is due to a large unrealized gain on securities held by affiliates. Second, we booked a gain of ¥8.9 billion from changes in our own and our counterparty credit spreads. And third, we booked an unrealized gain of ¥9.9 billion from the shares we hold in Ashikaga Holdings. Please turn to page five for an overview of results by business. First, in Retail, sales of stocks were robust on the back of the market rally stemming from monetary easing by the Bank of Japan and an increase in primary deals. Discretionary investment inflows and sales of insurance products also performed well. As shown on the bottom, total sales rose 13% quarter-on-quarter. The market rally led to profit taking and net inflows of cash and securities were lower at ¥176.6 billion, but Retail client assets climbed to a record ¥104.8 trillion at the end of December, supported by market factors. Retail net revenue increased 9% quarter-on-quarter to ¥128.8 billion. Income before income taxes grew 30% to ¥50.5 billion, which is the highest level since June 2013. As shown on page six, discretionary investment net inflows and sales of insurance products were at the highest level since the start of our business model transformation. Third quarter recurring revenue was ¥16.6 billion, which is ¥65.7 billion when annualized, putting us within reach of our March 2016 target of ¥69.6 billion. Please turn to page seven for Asset Management. Net revenue increased 8% to ¥23.4 billion. Income before income taxes grew to ¥9.3 billion, representing the best quarter since the three months ended September 2007. Assets under management reached the record high of ¥37.7 trillion as of the end of December driven up by inflows into products for discretionary investments and market factors. In the investment trust business we saw solid sales of privately placed funds and fund draft and SME funds, all of which reported growth in assets under management. In the investment advisory business, our international business continues to grow through use of compliance funds. Outside Europe in addition to AEJ we're expanding distribution channels in terms of regional coverage and client as evidenced by winning new mandates from pension funds in Chile and Mexico. Please turn to Page 9, for an overview of wholesale. Net revenue declined 6% quarter-over-quarter to ¥178.9 billion, the main reason for the decline was a significant drop in fixed income revenues in EMEA and the Americas as a result of the challenging trading environment on the back of a decline in yields and a spike in volatility in October. Equities and investment banking reported higher revenues compared to last quarter, by region Japan and AEJ had a good quarter while EMEA and the Americas reports hit a slowdown. Income before income taxes declined 98% quarter-over-quarter to ¥500 million due to factors such as higher costs associated with an increase in trading volumes.