Nomura Holdings Inc. cut 50 investment banking jobs in Asia outside its home market as the recession crimps revenue from advising on stock sales and mergers, a company official said.

The reductions represent 2 percent of the brokerage's 2,500 employees in Asia outside Japan, the official said, asking not to be identified because there hasn't been an announcement.

Japan's largest brokerage is grappling with costs to integrate the operations of bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. it bought last year, leading to a record quarterly loss in the last three months of 2008. The worst financial crisis since the 1930s has also dampened initial public offerings and acquisitions, eroding investment banking revenue.

Tokyo-based Nomura acquired Lehman's Asian units after the New York-based firm went bankrupt in September, and took over 8,000 Lehman employees in October. Nomura's labor costs surged 73 percent in the quarter that ended Dec. 31, when it posted a record loss of ¥342.9 billion.

Nomura is eliminating more than 100 positions in Asia and at least 100 in Japan, two sources familiar with the situation said on Dec. 9. It also cut as many as 1,000 jobs in London, the brokerage said on Dec. 4.

Still, there is some hiring going on in the industry, with Bank of America Corp. Thursday naming three new employees for its Merrill Lynch & Co. business in Japan, including Hiroyuki Uchiyama from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as head of multistrategy sales from hedge funds.