Steve Ashley admits he has had to make some tough decisions over the past year as Nomura made more cuts to its investment bank.

The head of Nomura’s wholesale bank, who is based in London, oversees a division that bore the brunt of a $1bn cost-cutting programme in April 2019. Around 350 jobs were lost, 100 of them in the City, after a period of underperformance at Nomura’s investment bank that culminated in a ¥81bn ($746m) loss in 2018.