(Bloomberg) — Nomura Holdings Inc. ( NMR ) is telling clients to stay invested through the turmoil that’s pervaded financial markets during the escalating trade tensions. With its $1.8 billion acquisition of an asset management business, the Japanese brokerage is putting its money where its mouth is.

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“We constantly tell our clients, stay invested through short-term volatility,” Investment Management Chairman Christopher Willcox said in an interview after the firm’s most significant deal since it bought Lehman Brothers assets in 2008. “So if we were not to display those behaviors ourselves, we would not be particularly credible.”

With the purchase of Macquarie Group Ltd.’s ( MQBKY , MCQEF ) US and European public asset management business, Nomura is scooping up about $180 billion in client assets across equities, fixed income and multi-asset strategies. About 90% of them are from the US, where stocks, bonds and the dollar have faced selling pressure since President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs earlier this month.

Willcox said the latest disruptions don’t change the fact that the US remains the largest asset management market in the world. Nomura is seeking to build scale in the business to generate stable income and diversify away from the domestic retail operation as well as trading and investment banking, he said.

Nomura looked at at least 20 different possible acquisition targets, Willcox said. It may consider bolt-on transactions later to build on the platform.

“Clearly doing the deal in the middle of this much volatility is challenging and makes it harder,” said Willcox, who was once chief of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s asset management business. “But I think on both sides of this, we feel that the deal is reflective of the market conditions.”

Willcox said a lot of people have lost money betting against US markets in the past 30 to 50 years. While the latest volatility is likely to persist due to the political landscape, over time the market will find an equilibrium.

“I’m not bearish about markets,” he said, pointing out that the underlying capabilities of the US and global economy are still strong. “Short term, I think we’re all going to suffer through a lot of uncertainty.”

Japan Investors

Japanese investors are unlikely to suddenly start pulling assets that they have spent years accumulating abroad, even if their exposure to international markets isn’t particularly big, Willcox said, adding that it’s unclear what the alternatives would be.