By Nathan Layne and Silvia Ognibene TOKYO/SIENA (Reuters) - Nomura Holdings Inc said on Friday Italian prosecutors had frozen its assets in Italy in connection with a high-profile investigation over a derivatives contract with local lender Banca Monte Dei Paschi di Siena. Nomura Chief Financial Officer Shigesuke Kashiwagi said his bank had been informed on April 23 that Nomura Bank International's (NBI) assets in Italy had been frozen.

MILAN (Reuters) - The Bundesbank has rejected a request by Italian prosecutors to freeze assets belonging to Japanese bank Nomura <8604.T> and held in Germany, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday.

By Silvia Ognibene SIENA, Italy (Reuters) - Italian prosecutors have ordered the seizure of 1.8 billion euros (1.56 billion pounds) of assets from Japanese bank Nomura <8604.T> as part of a probe into a suspected fraud involving troubled lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena <BMPS.MI>. Prosecutors in the city of Siena said they were investigating Nomura's former top executive in Europe, Sadeq Sayeed, and Raffaele Ricci, managing director in fixed income sales for the EMEA region at the Japanese bank.

Italian police on Tuesday seized 1.8 billion euros ($2.3 billion) destined for Nomura and placed the Japanese bank's former CEO Sadeq Sayeed under investigation in a fraud probe over a derivatives deal with troubled Italian lender Monte dei Paschi. A statement from the prosecutor's office in Siena, the hometown of the Italian bank, said it had ordered the seizure of "a total of around 1.8 billion euros from Nomura International." Prosecutors also seized a total of 14.4 million euros from three former managers of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena who are under investigation.