Global presence, local solutions

SMBC Nikko offers high-quality fixed income market-making services to institutional clients globally, across a broad range of fixed income products. Our integrated platform across trading, sales and strategy enables us to provide liquidity in global credit and rates markets, covering all major global institutional investor bases.

Backed by SMFG capital, and leading with our global lending presence, we are expanding our fixed income franchise, with hubs in London, Frankfurt, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo. By aligning ourselves with our fast-growing debt origination business, we aim to provide liquidity and thought leadership across the world of fixed income.

The fixed income division at SMBC Nikko comprises four departments: trading, sales, strategy, and structured products and solutions.

Our professionals combine deep expertise with a commitment to the highest standards of ethical conduct. Our top priority is meeting the needs of our clients with integrity and transparency.

TRADING

Operating from a position of strength in capital and global distribution base, our fixed income trading team specialises in trading sovereign, investment grade and high yield fixed income instruments denominated in a wide range of currencies. We provide particular emphasis on government and supranational bonds, European corporate and financial bonds, Japanese financial bonds and Middle East emerging market bonds.

Our growing presence in electronic trading on all major platforms, including Bloomberg ALLQ, MarketAxess and Tradeweb, ensures a consistent and timely execution of all client corporate bond trades.

Credit trading

Our credit trading business focuses on trading EMEA investment grade, high yield and emerging market fixed and floating rate products in the secondary markets across a very broad range of currencies and formats. We work closely with our capital markets team to provide targeted liquidity on those names where we have a lending relationship.

Expertise

  • European corporate IG – we trade IG bonds, fixed rate and floating, as well as hybrids, with particular expertise in automotives, consumers, telecoms and towers, utilities and Japanese names.
  • European and Japanese financials – we trade European financial bonds across the capital structure in euros and US dollars. As a bank with Japanese roots, we have a particular focus and edge in trading Japanese financials in US dollars,in which we hold a top ranking.
  • Middle East and north Africa (MENA) emerging markets – We trade sovereign, corporate and financial bonds in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, Egypt and Israel, and sukuk bonds in Indonesia and Malaysia. We have consistently been ranked fist and second by traded volume on Bloomberg and MarketAxxess platforms for GCC corporate and financial credits and ranked second globally by MarketAxess for trading sukuks.
  • Asset backed securities (ABS) – We are building an ABS business which complements our investing and capital markets activities in Auto ABS, Dutch and UK prime and buy-to-let residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), Australian RMBS, student loans and credit cards.

Government and sovereign, supranational and agency (SSA) bond trading

Our Japanese government bond trading franchise delivers exceptional service to clients all around the world, combining deep liquidity, consistent high hit rates and analyst insight from our Tokyo research team. Our expanding non-yen rates trading offering provides markets in European and US government bonds with a primary focus on our Japanese investor base. We also have a very competitive Japanese SSA business, which when combined with our global rates offering, gives clients access to liquidity 24 hours a day.

 

SALES

The fixed income sales teams of seasoned professionals enjoying deep rooted, long-term relationships with the major institutional investors in the UK, Switzerland and continental Europe, the Middle East and Africa. We work closely with other salesforces based in the US, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan to ensure seamless global coverage.

Focusing on trusted and sustainable relationships, we use our expertise and knowledge to establish long-standing partnerships with our clients, providing liquidity, content and solutions to enable them to achieve their investment objectives.

We work closely with our expanding capital markets team to market and distribute primary transactions and support them in secondary markets.

STRATEGY

Our experienced strategy professionals are ready to answer questions, discuss credits and help navigate the complex arenas of global bond market, offering impartial and expert credit and strategy advice. We follow a wide range of debt issuers in sovereign, corporate and financial markets with particular focus on:

  • MENA sovereigns
  • European and global banks
  • MENA corporates and banks

Our global strategy team brings additional expertise in technology, media, telecoms, automotives, healthcare and Asian high yield credit.

STRUCTURED PRODUCTS & SOLUTIONS

We are expanding our structured product suite to support the needs of our clients in ever changing market conditions. We work across the SMBC Group to bring investors exciting opportunities in medium-term notes, illiquid assets and financing from our long standing lending relationships around the globe.