Honda Finance Co. Ltd. and four other companies dropped Nomura Holdings Inc. as an underwriter of their bond sales after the brokerage's employees were found to have shared sensitive stock market data, Bloomberg News reported May 27.

Komatsu Ltd. and Tokyo Metro Co. Ltd. joined Honda Finance in excluding Nomura as a joint lead manager for their yen bond sales, the outlet reported, citing details provided by other managers on the deals. Fuji Oil Holdings Inc. and Osaka Gas Co. Ltd. already removed the brokerage from their debt issues.

The report came after an internal probe by the Japanese brokerage found that a researcher at affiliate Nomura Research Institute shared confidential information relating to the listing and delisting criteria for the Tokyo Stock Exchange upper section to a strategist at Nomura Securities Co. Ltd. The strategist then passed on the information to other employees at the securities unit, some of whom provided the information to institutional investor clients, according to the investigation.

Nomura said it will temporarily cut the pay of group CEO Koji Nagai and other executives as part of measures to prevent a recurrence of the incident. The Nikkei reported May 23 that Japan's Financial Services Agency decided to issue a business improvement order to Nomura in relation to the leaks.

Honda Finance is a unit of Honda Motor Co. Ltd.