Japanese financial services major Nomura Holdings will acquire the Indian operations of beleaguered Lehman Brothers' back office business as part of its acquisition of the investment bank's operations in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Nomura is likely to retain Lehman's nearly 2,000 strong workforce in India, media reports said.

''Nomura Holdings Inc has reached an agreement to acquire for several billion yen Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's Indian operations that have handled the bankrupt US firm's global back-office duties and information technology development,'' business daily The Nikkei reported.

Lehman's back office in Mumbai has more than 2,000 employees and handles the investment bank's information technology and R&D activities among others. It also handles trading settlement duties.

Some reports also said Nomura was planning additional investments as the Indian base has talented IT workers and was the core of Lehman's cutting-edge systems.

Nomura is expected to absorb 8,000 Lehman employees, once the Japanese firm acquires Indian operations.

Lehman's North American operations were acquired by British banking major Barclays.

Lehman Brothers, battered by huge losses in the American mortgage market, filed for bankruptcy protection two weeks back with the US regulator. Since then, the firm has been disposing of its assets and Nomura snapped up the investment bank's Asia-Pacific, European and Middle East operations.

Nomura had earlier bought Lehman's India trading operation near Mumbai, as part of its Asia-wide acquisition.

Barclays PLC, which bought Lehman's North America operations, was among the bidders, people familiar with the development said. Indian software export giants Wipro Ltd and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd were also said to have been interested bidders.