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ESG Update

Sep 28, 2023

Chie Toriumi
Senior Managing Director and Head of Sustainability, Nomura

Good morning. I am Toriumi, in charge of sustainability. Thank you very much for joining us on the occasion of the Nomura Sustainability Day. I know you're busy. Thank you very much. Today, myself and Mr. Kishida Yoshifumi, who was appointed Chief Sustainability Officer in April, will introduce to you the initiatives at the group, and then that would be followed by President Koike of Nomura Asset Management, and Mr. Vinod Mukani, Global Head of Infrastructure Power Finance, for their presentations. Going on to page 3. The systems and policies regarding sustainability have changed quite drastically. We are seeing platforms being integrated and development of disclosure rules and regulations over sustainability. While higher global comparability is desirable, on the other hand, that probably would mean higher burden on the part of the disclosing companies, so there has to be more discussions on interoperability of global standards.

And also, on one hand, while we've seen development of rules, during the past year, policies oriented towards industrial promotion have emerged, like IRA in the United States, EU Green Deal Industrial Plan, or Japan's GX Promotion Act, spurring innovation towards decarbonized society in the business world. Under such environment, whenever we conduct a discussion on sustainability initiatives, we use the three-tiered model on the left. Usually, in the conventional IR activities, we focused on the dark shaded portion, matters already reflected in the financial accounts. On top of that, we are capturing sustainability elements that have positive and negative impact to value creation, control business risk through risk management against environmental and social challenges, to reduce shareholder equity costs, and achieve sustainable growth through business to solve environment and social challenges. We think that these two things need to be done to create sustainable economic value.

Further, with corporate activities causing positive impact to the society, we think that we will be able to contribute to the elevation of corporate value in the long run. Let me speak about this from a slightly different angle. This afternoon, there will be the Sustainability Day event for customers hosted by Content Company, for which I currently am responsible. This slide is part of the presentation on impact visualization, which will be used this afternoon. If we do a quantified analysis of market value of U.S.-listed companies, we can see a gap in the form of latent values that cannot be explained only by recent performance or short-term growth rate. This is because the mid to long-term expected growth, often described as small letter g, is factored in. But when we analyze Japanese companies, generally speaking, we were not able to find a factoring in of g.

That may be one of the reasons why the average PBR is lower in Japan. On the other hand, when we analyze the equity prices of Japanese companies that are listed as investees of asset managers in impact reports, we found that the latent value, positive latent value, is factored in. By reducing shareholder equity cost through their information disclosure, they are probably able to create this positive g, which is reflected in the share prices, also caused by market confirming their positive impact. Recently, we've seen an increased number of social challenge-solving startups in Japan. Of course, we need more discussions on the appropriate pricing level at IPO, but through visualization of impact and dialogue with markets, it's probably possible to increase g of startups. So what's the role to be played by investment companies, investment banks?

I think, we need to continue our discussions with investors on how we can visualize impact and visualize the latent value of Japanese companies. We also think that Nomura also can create social value that can be found in impact companies. Going on to page 6. Nomura Asset Management did an awareness survey on financial literacy and found correlation between financial literacy and investment experience. As we have been talking about, we've been offering education on economy and finance to more than 1 million people, from elementary school children, college students, to those with careers. We've also developed educational materials for teachers. Now, this is a very crude hypothesis, but say more people will be receiving quality education in finance and economy, leading to higher literacy, increasing the number of active investors.

Although this may take long time, say hypothetically, we are able to increase financial literacy throughout the society, we can do an estimation, that results in increase of active investors by 40%. So the estimated household financial assets is JPY 2,000 trillion. So say 40%, who own JPY 800 trillion, will invest 50% of their assets, and that means JPY 400 trillion will shift from deposits to investment, which will create two social values. First of all, there will be investment of such funds into the industry, leading to economic growth, and the second effect is higher investment income of retail investors.... ROI of JPY 400 trillion is not insignificant, and also, if there is shift from deposits to investment, that would mean more business opportunities for Nomura Group and elevated economic value.

Now, I'm only giving you a very broad image based upon many hypotheses and assumptions, but we're also going to be making real efforts so that our initiatives will be reflected in our G. Now, I hand over to Kishida-san to speak about the initiatives at Nomura Group in the area of environment, economic value creation framework in business for customers, and creation of social values.

Yoshifumi Kishida
CSO, Nomura

Hello, I am Kishida, Chief Sustainability Officer. After joining Nomura, I mainly worked with the legal or corporate planning division, and was appointed Senior Managing Director, Chief Sustainability Officer and Corporate Disclosure in April this year. Nomura Group recently issued our integrated report, Nomura Report, and this year, the report describes how we will review the value creation process and materiality to generate economic and social values.

When we look at the environment surrounding us, we can discover these challenges: rapidly changing global dynamics, environmental issues, digital shift, Japan's declining birthrate and aging population, DEI and human rights, enhancement of corporate governance. We consider the risk and opportunities in each of these six areas, and I will be talking about what kind of initiatives we are doing in the area of sustainability to counter these challenges. Each slide will indicate the relevant challenge we are to tackle. First of all, how are we responding to the environmental challenges at Nomura? Towards the early realization of a decarbonized society, we declared our support of Paris Agreement in 2021, and signed up to the NZBA, Net Zero Banking Alliance, and NZAM, Net Zero Asset Managers initiatives. The absolute amount of emissions and risk is probably very limited at Nomura in comparison to non-financial companies and commercial banks.

Let me describe further. GHG emissions of Nomura for Scope 1, 2 in the term ended March 2023 was 26,656 tons. Most of it was power consumption at offices and data centers. By 2030, we will shift 100% of our power source to renewables. That is our target, and the ratio of renewables last fiscal year was 67.8%. Later this month, we are going to announce the GHG emissions reduction target for Japan, set for voluntary carbon credit exchange to the GX League. Next, on Scope 3, category 15, investment and loan portfolio. GHG emissions relevant to Scope 3 investment and loans was 7 million tons for all sectors in the term ended March 2023. This is probably much lower than commercial banks. By sector, the power sector accounts for the highest proportion.

In February of this year, we set and announced the interim target for net zero based upon the NZBA guidelines in the power sector. We will make our portfolio in line with the energy mix in the IEA scenario by end of fiscal year 2030. We collected the data for the past three years and discovered that due to the two reasons of change in emission coefficient of the external database and the change in energy mix of our financial emissions, our emissions have increased. Taking into consideration that on balance, asset turnaround is quick in the case of the investment banking operations in Nomura, we will be thinking about a transition plan for the power sector in the H2

Separate from the banking portfolio, we also have the asset management portfolio, and NAM is targeting to achieve net zero by 2050. The 2030 interim target is 55% of AUM to be managed in alignment with achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Last year, in December, the net zero department was newly established in order to plan and promote net zero strategy. In addition to decarbonization, we have more opportunities to discuss such subjects as circular economy and nature positive. Practices like collection of e-waste, which we do in our offices, will be spread to other outlets. So far, I've talked about our initiatives in the area of environment, what falls under traditional ESG risk management.

Now, I would like to focus on our activities on sustainability-related business for clients. This slide includes the total picture of our business activities, which was included in Nomura Report. We provide extensive and highly various financial services to issuers and investors through the capital markets. Now I'm going to talk about the activities following the material principles through the capital markets and business for clients in the order of wholesale investment management, retail, and contents company. First, wholesale. The sustainability business centers around and starts from capturing the client needs and pain points through corporate project asset coverage by Green tech and investor coverage by global markets. In various stages of our clients' projects, as described from the top left, fundraising for growing companies, clockwise, project finance, bottom right, corporate finance, including IPO, PO, sustainable debt underwriting, bottom left, mature companies M&A.

These are the wide-ranging services that we provide. On the right-hand side of the slide, we describe the sub-sector mainly prioritized by Green tech. Let me share with you two indicators that represent business performance. On the bottom left, trend of M&A revenues based on Green tech. Fiscal year ending March 2023 was down 30% year-on-year, but in light of the fact that the global M&A market fell by 37%, that was not poor performance. On the bottom right, actual amount of sustainable finance against a target of $125 billion in 5 years. In the year ended last March, which was the second year during the target period, the total was $25.2 billion. On a cumulative 2-year basis, we've outperformed our internal target.

In the area of infrastructure power finance, deals that satisfy the sustainable finance criteria increased 67% year-on-year, while sustainable bond underwriting increased 17%. These are cases of M&A and advisory for growing companies that are covered on the left side of the business overview diagram. In 2022, our internal resources and the acquired Green tech organization were integrated, and these are deals captured thereafter. The first case is the U.S. company, Pattern Energy, selling its stake in Green Power Investment, which is a leading Japanese renewable power generation company, to NTT Anode Energy JERA Consortium. We served as the financial advisor to Pattern Energy. This was a major cross-border deal supporting a leading company in wind, solar, and other renewables to advance to a new stage through M&A.

The second case is advisory to the French company, Innovafeed, in the financing of EUR 250 million. A growing company in the area of agritech sustainability food, including insect-derived protein, was seeking investment by institutional and business investors to finance their capital expenditure and R&D.

Hiroyuki Moriuchi
CFO, Nomura

At the top right of the business overview is infrastructure in the power finance. Our dedicated team, called IPF, based in New York, handles project finance for project assets such as solar and wind power generation. When we accumulate IPF's track record of transactions for renewable energy, social transition will be enabled, and it will contribute to Nomura's initiative to promote net zero at the power sector, and it will also benefit us financially. The business and differentiating factors of IPF will be later explained by Vinod Mukani, who is in charge of this area. Let me introduce our underwriting activities in corporate finance and capital market business at the bottom left of our overview. In ESG bond underwriting in Japan, we held the number one position in the H1 of 2023.

Sustainable finance department of Nomura Securities, established in October last year to strengthen sustainability-related businesses, played a leading role. Also, in Europe, we have continued our track record of underwriting sustainability bonds worth more than JPY 100 billion. Also, transition finance that raises funds necessary for companies' CapEx and R&D activities towards decarbonized society is growing increasingly important. In Japan, Nomura served as the lead manager in 38 out of 40 issuance of transition bonds. Transition bonds have mainly been issued in Japan so far, but we are working to use the scheme in overseas market. And at ICMA's annual conference, where transition finance was the theme, we attended as the lead sponsor in our effort to contribute to the wide adoption of transition finance. Also, there has been a progress in issuance of equities.

When JFE Holdings conducted overseas public offering and issued convertible bond overseas in September 2023, major finance transaction was executed to raise funds for large-scale decarbonization investment. Next, investment management division's initiatives. We are involved from the investor perspectives for in the financial market at Nomura Group. Investment management division conducts asset management business and in public and private, and in real asset asset classes. The division is meeting needs of clients. In the area of public, the core manager is asset, Nomura Asset Management, which is playing the lead, and in providing various products and investment opportunities, the firm is pursuing economic and social values. The details will be explained by Mr. Koike, President, later. In private real asset area, we are strengthening forest, next generation clean energy, and climate change solutions.

The world's global number 2 forest asset manager, New Forests, has been acquired in January 2023, and in August this year, we've invested for the first time in Asia fund operated by New Forests. Through investment into forest asset, we are looking to obtain financial return, and while pursuing carbon credit acquisition. Next, retail division. In the new form of capitalism, the financial well-being is one of the initiatives to strengthen human capital initiatives, and there are many companies that are trying to support asset formation of employees. Nomura's workplace service and financial educations are being provided to support our client companies in strengthening their human capital, and also in alliance, through alliance with the regional banks, we are contributing to economic development in regional areas.

From the viewpoint of supporting the challenges faced by the aging society in Japan, at Nomura Trust and Banking, we are providing an inheritance service, and also the Nomura Institute of Estate Planning is providing us the inheritance planning services, and content company is publicizing the research result on ESG and sustainability, and also issuing regular reports and publications. Later today, in the afternoon, the content company is conducting the session. Then within content company, Nomura Agri Planning and Advisory, or NAPA, which is an agriculture consulting firm, is working on initiatives for regional revitalization and decarbonization society. The firm is providing consultation regarding food and agriculture throughout the food value chain. On the right of the slide, you see Moonshot Research and Development Program, which is a government-led major research program.

As part of the program, NAPA has been commissioned to provide support under the theme of creating sustainable food supply industry. In June, the firm tied up with the University of Queensland in Australia in order to promote R&D toward establishing a stable system to supply food and sustainable biofuel. Now let me switch to the something that will contribute to society in delivering value, even though it's not benefiting us directly financially. Social value we can deliver is to create inclusive and healthy capital market. Nomura Group, over the years, have been disseminating information by conducting event to send out information on attractiveness of Japan equities and the bonds, and also by introducing the investment opportunities and growth opportunities to enjoy the growth of the globe. We have supported the development of the market.

When I talk to external people, oftentimes I bring up the topic of financial education, which is a topic that is valued by many people. For example, we receive various opinions, such as employees and officers of listed companies should receive financial education. Toriumi talked about impact expected from financial literacy improvement, from the viewpoint of shaping household assets stably by realizing favorable money as cycle, where benefits of growth is distributed to households. Japan Financial Education Association will be established next year with the government's involvement, and the government is about to conduct initiatives to improve financial literacy and help shape assets. Taking this opportunity, Nomura will contribute to improvement of financial literacy of all generations of people, from students to business people. Nomura supports impact startups that aim for resolution of social challenges and sustainable growth.

In the capital market, we would like to conduct thorough research on impact evaluation. While supporting Impact Startup Association as a partner member, we participated in the discussion for promoting impact investment as the member of study group on impact investment established by JFSA. We will be conducting activities to materialize expected growth rate or G in the medium to long term. To realize a sustainable society, oftentimes, regulations and policies need to be revisited, and new policies need to be introduced. Support from governments is also important. Companies in the private sector will need to work on transformation by working with each other and by involving government agencies.

For instance, Nomura has led discussions at GX Management Promotion Working Group, established by METI as one of the initiatives of GX League. In March this year, as a result of discussions, basic policy on disclosure and evaluation of climate-related opportunities was announced. It aims to create a mechanism where corporations' initiatives on climate change, such as contribution to emission reduction, are evaluated appropriately, not only for generating profit for ourselves and for the industry, but also for improving social value. Such policy proposal activities are our important obligation, and we stay active in these activities. Next, I would like to speak about sustainability management, governance structure, and our human capital initiatives. We are continuously enhancing management structure regarding sustainability. As for important strategy on sustainability, deliberations take place and decisions are made at Sustainability Committee starting this year.

In order to deepen discussions further, we established the Business Sustainability Forum and Corporate Sustainability Forum underneath Sustainability Committee, so that discussions can take place among officers across divisions and regions. In addition, in order to reflect discussions at the board of directors meeting on our sustainability strategy and to contribute to effective oversight by the board, we have increased the occasions where we take up the topic of sustainability in a board meeting. Many of our external directors have deep knowledge and experiences regarding sustainability, and we receive from them various advice. Recently, based on the input that we've received regarding initiatives on human rights, non-financial information disclosure, our materiality, and so on, we have reflected such input on our initiatives. For us to grow sustainably and improve our corporate value, measures on human capital, our biggest assets, are important.

We are improving employee engagement and differentiating ourselves with intellectual capital, which is a source of competitiveness, such as organization, know-how, client network, and so on. In addition, regarding DEI, we believe that a diverse human resources are the key driver of our growth strategy, and in October last year, to allow each employee to address different situations and work in their own manner, we added concept of equity to the diversity and inclusion initiatives. Nomura has quite a diverse organization, where about 40% of our employees are working overseas, and we have about 90 nationalities of employees. In Japan, more than half of employees are mid-career hires, and about 50% of officers upon-appointed this year started their careers outside of Nomura. I'm deviating from measures on human capital, but we place importance on diversity of our board of directors.

Out of 13 directors, nine are external with various backgrounds, and at our board meetings, we receive a variety of advice and challenges, and we engage in high-quality discussions actively. You may already know, as there was media coverage, but we are starting a new initiative at Nomura Securities in October. At Nomura Securities, it's been decided that our employees who take more than one month of childcare leave are provided with childcare leave incentive, which is 10% of their annual basic salary, regardless of their gender. Last year, among male employees at Nomura Securities, childcare leave acquisition rate was 87.2%, but many of them took those childcare leaves by using company's proprietary system. It was only a little more than 10% of male employees that took childcare leaves longer than five days.

We feel this situation is a challenge, and we decided to encourage male employees to take childcare leaves by granting incentives. In addition, to further promote DEI, we've decided to incorporate DEI initiatives into personnel evaluation at Nomura Securities. Human resources with diverse sets of values are indispensable in a highly competitive environment, so by promoting employees to take childcare leave, I believe our employees will have better understanding of different positions and ideas. We will continue our efforts to create a workplace that is not just comfortable, but also where diverse human resources can work actively. This is the last slide.

Recently, business and human rights is positioned as one of important themes, but based upon the discussion at the board of directors meeting in May this year, we have formulated our human rights policy to deepen initiatives to respect human rights, and we have worked on initiatives to secure social trust from stakeholders, including our clients, suppliers, as well, as well as our employees. As I introduced, we are providing highly value-added solutions by leveraging our strengths to address challenges faced by various stakeholders, including our clients. Also, by tackling the challenges and becoming a sustainable company ourselves, I believe we will be able to improve our enterprise value. In order to fulfill our social mission of contributing to the creation of a truly rich society through the financial and capital market, we will be implementing various initiatives. I ask for your continued support. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Kishida-san. Next, Koike, CEO and President of Nomura Asset Management, will deliver his presentation. The floor is yours, Mr. Koike.

Kentaro Koike
President and CEO, Nomura

Hello, everyone. I am Koike of Nomura Asset Management. I thank you very much for this precious opportunity to talk to you. I will be introducing to you the sustainability initiatives that we are engaged in at Nomura Asset Management as an asset manager. First slide. This is well known to you. It's the diagram of the virtuous cycle of investment or investment chain. We are aiming to realize a sustainable and prosperous society through investment, so we have to foster this investment chain to become big and deep, strong and resilient. It is our role to do that and to have as many investors participate in the chain as possible. And of course, we will aim not only to create economic value, but also social value, because creation of social value equals sustainability and is represented in many themes, including SDG Seventeen, ESG, climate, and decarbonization.

In other words, our mission is to aim for a virtuous cycle of investment chain by focusing on creation of economic value, but at the same time, balancing social value creation. Sustainability could be referred to as creation of social values, and people tend to focus on individual challenges like decarbonization. On the other hand, as you know, the government has announced its strategy to make Japan a nation facilitating asset management. This will be a major transformation. Again, focusing your attention to the circular diagram on the left, we will today introduce to you the initiatives towards creation of economic value with the investment chain as the core. In the Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform 2023, the Japanese government announced that they will be making Japan a nation facilitating asset management. What kind of country do they mean?

We think there are two main flows in the area of asset management, and they are outbound and inbound. Outbound is about Japanese money, mainly household financial assets, going into global investment. Inbound is about foreign risk money flowing into the Japanese markets, Japanese capital markets, especially the equity market. We have to enlarge and maximize the outbound and inbound flows. We want to make Japanese financial function and capital markets sit at the core of global money circulation, and I think that's what it is meant as a nation facilitating asset management. So as an asset manager, we will engage in the maximization of outbound and inbound and upgrade the investment chain. As we try to build such nation, in order to strengthen the investment chain, we are faced with a few challenges. Today, I will talk about enhancing investment management capabilities, strengthening global expertise, pro-product governance, and engagement.

First, enhancing investment management capabilities. This will serve as source of performance. It is the core of the investment chain. For some time, we have been engaging in efforts to strengthen investment capabilities, but in order to further boost our capabilities, we conducted a review of the organizational structure and HR system in April. These are the key points: Drive competitive investment performance, enhance development and delivery of solutions to meet client needs, and build up research capabilities. To do that, we did a review of the investment organizational structure, system of evaluating performance of managers, and training and education of young managers who will be the leader of tomorrow. In order to maximize our performance to the clients, we will further seek to strengthen our investment capabilities to become amongst the top tier in the global market, and we're engaged in initiatives to strengthen global expertise.

In terms of the outbound of a nation oriented towards asset management, there has to be strengthened global investment capabilities. Within this trend, we can't just leave it up to the foreign asset managers to do global investment. We have to have in-house capabilities to foster talents within ourselves for global management. This describes our global strategy to build up our in-house capabilities for global investment. This strategy is appreciated not only by domestic retail investors, but also by foreign institutional investors. For example, earlier this year, we were given a new mandate by a major overseas pension fund for global multi-themed strategy.... We also were commissioned JPY 400 billion from a major pension fund for bond investment by NCRAM.

Against the backdrop of such high level of global expertise, we are seeing more flow of capital from clients overseas, and the total assets under management of our global investment has reached JPY 4 trillion, and yet it's only a small 5% of our total AUM. By further increasing our investment capabilities and polishing our product lineup, we want to elevate this ratio. That will require us to have investment capability and performance at least equal to our global peers. So strengthening investment capabilities is a must. We are also injecting efforts to strengthen product governance. We set up the Product Governance Department in April last year. We had, for some time, been doing verification of investment performance, but this time we newly established the Product Governance Committee to review the strength of product offerings and make changes when necessary.

Initiatives for improvement introduced as a result of such product review are shared on our website in the form of a fund review report. Evaluation is done based on a scale of three stages. Funds with huge room for improvement will be subject to intense measures for improvement, mainly through the product management function. Products without much chance for improvement shall be reviewed, redeemed, or bundled with other products. Through such measures and redemption at maturity, the number of publicly placed investment trusts will most likely be halved by 2030. By promoting such review process, we will consolidate our portfolio to have only high-quality funds and concentrate our investment resources to achieve higher performance for our clients. We will continue our engagement in product governance, explain to our customers our initiatives for self-improvement, and gain their trust.

Hiroyuki Moriuchi
CFO, Nomura

This slide, it is said that 20 million people now invest in Japan. Total number of NISA accounts is 17 million, and NISA buying amount is JPY 28 trillion, and the government is aiming to increase these numbers by five times over a five-year period. We would like to so double these numbers over a five-year period. We would like to go further and deliver asset management to all people of Japan. The new NISA scheme will give that opportunity. On the other hand, there is the challenge of improving financial literacy. We are providing financial and economic education so that each client can find investment style that suits them. There are active funds and balanced funds, and some investment beginners may start with low-cost index fund.

For people to discover investment style that suits them and to conduct long-term investment, we would like to enrich financial and economic education. As you know, Nomura is starting to offer Hajimete no NISA series for beginners. This is a low-cost index fund, but we don't intend to unnecessarily enter price competition. Through the introduction of the new NISA scheme, we are providing diverse investment opportunities so that clients can build assets in a stable manner. Product governance is the philosophy that constitutes the backbone of such initiatives. Now, I would like to talk about engagement. Our engagement is to urge companies to conduct desirable management to achieve both enterprise value enhancement and sustainable growth based on our deep understanding of the firms. For this purpose, we are engaging in dialogues with companies in a friendly and constructive manner.

Engagement is conducted by investment managers, research analysts, and ESG specialists working together in an integrated manner, and I am happy to say that we are a leading asset manager in Japan in terms of our team structure and scale. Last year, we achieved about 1,300 engagements, which is a year-on-year increase. Now, I'd like to introduce two engagement themes. First is climate change engagement. In 2021, Nomura has set 2050 net zero target regarding GHG emission from asset management. To achieve the target, we are urging our portfolio companies to set GHG reduction targets in line with Paris Agreement. With Japanese firms aware of the issue of climate change, an increasing number of companies are setting reduction goals. The second is diversification of the board of directors and engagement regarding functional enhancement.

As you know, spurred on by the trend of corporate governance reform, appointments of female directors increased greatly over the last few years. On the other hand, in terms of the expected role of supervising the management, it appears there are still many companies that do not have functional board. For us, one of the requirements of the monitoring board that supervises the management is that the majority of the board is held by external directors. The percentage of companies that appoint external directors to account for the majority of the board is still low, and through engagement, we will be pushing companies towards the monitoring board model. Some people would question whether the increase in female directors and external director ratio is the result of engagement. We are going ahead of the industry, and we are analyzing the data on engagement activities and behavioral changes of portfolio companies.

Analyzing the data, I believe there has been a certain effect. In validating the data, in addition to the increase in the ratios of female and external directors, we could confirm statistical significance in the circled items. Moving forward, we are accumulating data and improving the precision of our analysis. Based on analysis results, we are conducting more effective engagement activities. Since last year, we have communicated the attractiveness of Japanese equities to global investors in an initiative called Project Bridge. And we have visited many investors in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America, to communicate the attractiveness of the Japanese equity market, which is considered undervalued among the global stock markets, and to attract overseas risk money to Japan. In other words, this is to strengthen inbound money inflow. The word bridge has two meanings.

The first meaning is to be the bridge between overseas investors and Japanese firms. The second is to fill the gap between Japanese companies' potential values and their market values, or their stock prices. In addition, through our engagement, we are aiming to boost the values of our corporate, our portfolio companies in Japan, and create the favorable cycle of inbound money inflow. I, myself, have had dialogues with CEOs of our portfolio companies at CEO engagement, and we've disclosed such dialogues on our website. Today, at this Sustainability Day event, I explained sustainability in the asset management business, in particular, the enhancement of investment chain based on the creation of economic and social values for activating asset management in Japan. I hope you could deepen your understanding on Nomura Asset Management's initiatives. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Koike-san.

Our next speaker is the Global Head of Infrastructure and Power Finance, Mr. Vinod Mukani. Now, the floor is yours.

Vinod Mukani
Global Head of Infrastructure and Power Finance and Managing Director., Nomura

My name is Vinod Mukani. I'm the Global Head of Infrastructure and Power Finance business at Nomura. The Infrastructure and Power Finance business, or IPF, was founded in 2017 when I joined Nomura. IPF focuses on real economy assets such as energy, transportation, and telecommunication projects, among others. Business sits with securitized products in global markets and has a single-minded focus to provide and arrange financial and intellectual capital for asset owners active in infrastructure and power space. And by doing so, the team is helping make these assets an economic reality with a tangible impact on society. If you look at the sector from societal lens, the world stands at an inflection point in history... Economic progress has made our world smaller and more connected, but it has also accelerated challenges like managing global energy needs, taking on climate change, and need for access to information and data.

The purpose and role for the business is to support capital formation for these assets and to solve for some of the challenges that I just mentioned, and in the process, generate meaningful and accretive returns for Nomura. And to do that, the key, key is team's ability to evaluate complex risks up and down the capital structure and through full asset life cycle, and then come up with product offerings and structures to allocate these risks to counterparties best suited to handle those. Leverage our diverse client and investor base in Japan and across the globe to create investor demand by connecting markets to make these projects bankable. The need for that bankability is obvious, considering significant funding gap for infrastructure assets globally.

Today, with strong global presence, IPF business is on track to generate around $150 million in annual revenues, with the potential to grow to $250 million in coming years, with a diversified profile and a top-quartile ROEs, which are driven by fee income. You may be wondering what sets us apart from other commercial banks with substantially greater balance sheets. With more than 100 institutions that have been active, how can Nomura really compete? At the very start, we knew that to build and scale our business, we needed to identify our competitive edge. It was clear that the solution was not to be predominantly balance sheet-driven business. A solution-driven approach to tackle complexity had to be our key differentiator. Nomura's platform affords us unique advantages.

Nomura's global reach with access to investor base in Japan and across the globe creates opportunities to connect our investor clients and these assets. With exactly that, we have built strong franchise recognition on the street. We have amassed a significant track record with tombstones and accolades, over $15 billion in commitments worldwide, over 100 closed transactions across various types of assets. Now, behind this success stands a dedicated team of experts who are passionate about sustainability. The team boasts over 100 years of collective experience, comprising individuals versed in various sectors and financing structures, a dynamic, globally integrated team with the deep connections to Japanese and Asian investors, transcending borders and jurisdictions.

Leveraging Nomura's platform, we can offer multiple products and solutions to our infrastructure clients, whether it is hedging of interest rates, FX, or inflation with help of RSG and rates desk, access to capital markets with the help of syndicate sales, DCM and ECM teams, or M&A services through our GII and IB platform. We can truly act as a one-stop shop. With innovative solutions and flawless execution, the relationship we have built or we build with asset owners and investor clients is deep. We celebrate these partnerships and the resulting repeat business. Now, when I think of tailwinds for IPF business, the one that stands out is the decarbonization and shift towards a low-carbon world. Climate change is certainly one of the most critical challenges that we are facing as a society. Nomura is committed to issues around climate change and financing green infrastructure.

It is our belief that a clean environment is critical for the well-being of society today and for generations to come. Nomura's commitment to green infrastructure finance is a central focus for the firm, not only because it's good for business, but also because it creates value for global community and helps drive solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges. Decarbonization offers an unprecedented opportunity for IPF. When I look back at the last few years, we have allocated investments for renewable and low-carbon projects across the globe and have grown to be trusted leader in the industry. 50%+ of IPF's total facilitated commitments have supported renewable energy and energy security since inception of the business. This equates to approximately $7.5 billion in capital.

In Japan, particularly, despite the presence of local mega banks, we have led more than $2 billion in financing, adding more than 1 GW of renewable energy to Japan's grid. IPF's activity is also quite synergetic with the rest of the firm, as we are actively collaborating with banking and GII platform and other desks. Our activities span the globe. As you can see on this map, we have woven out our presence in various countries all over the world. To contextualize some of this, let me describe the first deal that IPF business worked on in 2017 and 2018. As a business, we were already sustainability focused at the time when this thematic was not as prominent as it is today. The client was looking for an optimal debt capital structure to support the operations of portfolio of 7 solar assets in Ontario, Canada.

As a background, the focus of Canadian authorities on decarbonizing the electric grid had led to a feed-in tariff program to make up for the limited amount of sunshine. The government was willing to pay over and above the spot price of electricity for 20 years in contractual manner, so the fundamentals made sense. But IPF had to compete with many central banks with a cheaper cost of capital. So to out-compete them, our leverage was a deep understanding of the asset, structuring skills leading to creative financing solutions, flawless execution, and Nomura's sales platform to create liquidity around that asset. So to solve this, we got closer to the asset and clients' needs to come up with an innovative solution to structure around variability of sunshine, offer financing duration while not taking inconsiderate interest rate risk, leverage our platform to find right partners from agency services to LC providers.

To manage execution and risk and build credibility, the first thing was depth of our engagement, the various external and internal functions and various tasks. To overcome our funding cost, our approach was to distribute the risk across the globe to others with lower funding costs, like Canadian Life . Israeli pension funds, and European investors. To offer rate hedging solutions to the financing structure, the team partnered with Rates Desk and RSG teams. All said and done, we closed the deal, distributed the risk, forged key partnerships, and gained market recognition to create momentum for our business. With this deal, what we were able to prove to the market, our clients and investors, and internally, that the business concept could truly scale.

Fast forward to now, with over 100 transactions completed, each bringing a unique set of obstacles, but with a consistent strategy and approach, we have demonstrated the business is scalable and relevant globally. In Japan, we identified the same decarbonization tailwinds in 2019, and have been able to grow Nomura's franchise in sustainable space. Of course, the deals are different. You have to take into account local specificities and a completely different lending market. But the thematic and approach are similar. Deep understanding of the asset, putting in a structure to place the risky risk to the counterparties that can handle, and build liquidity around it, execute flawlessly to deliver for our clients.

For example, in Japan, the challenge we needed to solve for our first transaction was the risk of losing a subsidized tariff in case of a change in design was made during construction of the project. Without going into the specifics, by leveraging Nomura and our expertise, we put in place a creative solution to analyze and mitigate this risk and built liquidity around the asset. With the same mindset and appropriate risk mitigations, we have done great financings, construction financings, and operational financings for solar, solar plus battery, onshore and offshore wind, at the senior level as well as junior level. We have done more than 20 deals and have led more than JPY 2 billion in financing for renewables. So despite our limited balance sheet, by unlocking liquidity from our investor partners, we are able to succeed through our ability to solve and execute.

There's no better way for me to show off the cross-border value proposition of Nomura, Nomura's global platform, than to talk about this facility put in place for Amp Energy. Amp Energy is a leading energy transition platform and a developer established in 2009, with over 7 gigawatts of assets operating in Japan, North America, the UK, Europe, and India. In 2021, Amp was looking for a facility to support their activity globally. Instead of solving for capital formation in Japan separately and a separate solution for North America and another one for Australia, they sought creative thinking to bring together a multi-jurisdictional solution. Amp decided to partner with Nomura and leverage the strength of the platform, and it retained Nomura as a sole lead arranger. We structured a multi-jurisdictional $350 million facility across Japan, the US, and Australia.

The team offered a unique solution that solves Amp's need for capital, but at the same time, investor clients were thrilled to be part of the financing. Nomura and IPF's skills were recognized by the market with the Deal of the Year award for their innovative approach. With this achievement in hand, we are more certain than ever that we can use our platform to tackle any challenges that come our way. I feel we're just getting started. Using a baseball analogy, I would say we are in the early innings. Over the next few years, we will see continuing need to invest in sustainable assets. We already have and will see diversification of technology. Our grid will need to accommodate intermittency of solar and wind generation. The deployment of battery units to manage peak and off-peak demand will accelerate, and the development of technologies like hydrogen will continue.

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, more than $30 trillion will need to be deployed by 2030 to achieve net zero carbon emissions, with a constant need thereafter until 2050. Looking at U.S. alone, the current administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a game changer for the U.S. sustainable industry. Through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Bill, the U.S. government has made an unprecedented long-term commitment to drive clean energy and the domestic manufacturing sectors. This amounts to more than $370 billion from 2022 2031, and it will impact all industry, not just the energy industry. Specifically in Japan, by leveraging deep expertise and significant market experience, IPF and Nomura are well positioned to support the evolving needs of Japan and serve our clients.

Japan has ambitious net zero targets by 2050 and has put measures in place to support this objective. Investments in offshore wind have reached record highs. By the end of the decade, significant investments are needed for grid-scale batteries. Renewables will account for 40% of Japan's energy mix by 2030. Look, I can go on and on. During Q&A, together with Murakami-san, who has been one of the biggest supporter of IPF business in Japan, we'll try to answer any questions you may have. The opportunity in Japan is simply massive, and in successful collaboration with NCI, NSC, as well as the sales platform in Japan, IPF and Nomura have a big role to play in this transformation. By doing so, we'll be able to mix what is good for society with what's good for Nomura.

It is an exciting time to be in this profession, and I'm honored to be leading this endeavor at Nomura. Thank you for taking time to hear what I have to say. I am looking forward to our Q&A session. Arigato gozaimasu.

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