Japan Post's IPO Affects Trillions in Savings, Billions of Letters and Thousands of Motorbikes
An employee scans a parcel before loading the package onto a van at a Japan Post post office in Tokyo.
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/BloombergJapan is privatizing its postal service. The size of the initial public offering when it starts trading on Nov. 4 will make it the biggest IPO in the world this year — in fact the biggest since Alibaba Group Holding went public in Sept. 2014. Selling shares in the mail delivery and financial giant, whose origins date back to 1871, has been a decade in the making.
Most of share sales are aimed at individuals — part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's goal to get people to invest more of their savings. He's counting on the listing to be a success that will lure investors to further offerings in the years ahead. Yet the three Japan Post companies (holding company, banking unit and insurance) have obstacles clouding their growth prospects. Here are eight numbers highlighting the IPO and some of the challenges: