Nomura has launched a new equity derivatives service platform aiming to combine trading speed and innovation with asset management service focus.

Nomura aims to offer clients a wide range of structured products, with a high level of before, during and after-sales service. The new Altrus product range will include innovative underlyings, bespoke structures and diverse issuance from a variety of different platforms including notes, certificates, warrants and funds. These products will be supported by in-depth knowledge of trading and risk systems, as well as regional regulations and structures.

"We have created Altrus as an alternative to traditional equity derivatives," said Joachim Willnow, head of equity derivatives at Nomura International. "We can take products from the trading floor and bring them more successfully to the market by offering services and skills that will help product providers and distributors grow assets more effectively."

The business has been fully operational since the start of the month and has completed more than half a billion dollars in structured transactions so far. The product pipeline includes innovative structures linked to the performance of such asset classes as property equity, commodities, equities and alternative investments.

Background notes: Nomura Group is a global investment bank dedicated to providing a broad range of financial services for individual, institutional, corporate and government clients. The Group offers a diverse line of competitive products and value-added financial and advisory solutions through its global headquarters in Tokyo, 133 branches in Japan, and an international network in 28 countries; with regional headquarters in Hong Kong, London, and New York. The Group's business activities include investment consultation and brokerage services for retail investors in Japan, and, on a global basis, brokerage services, securities underwriting, investment banking advisory services, merchant banking, and asset management.