As per persons familiar with the situation, Japan Post Holdings Co. is considering selling around a third of its shares in Japan Post Bank Co. by the end of next month in a share sale that may fetch close to $9 billion.
According to three persons who all requested anonymity, the postal behemoth is considering selling the shares before the end of the current fiscal year, which ends in March, and is anticipated to make a decision soon, dependent on market conditions.
TAs seen by two of the sources, the sale will cause Japan Post Holdings, which now owns about 89 percent of Japan Post Bank, to lower its holding to about 60 percent, assisting the banking sector in meeting share liquidity criteria set by the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
As said by two of the sources, the transaction would be worth about 1.2 trillion yen ($8.9 billion) at the going rate.
No such decision has been made, according to spokespeople for Japan Post Holdings and Japan Post Bank.
It has not yet been decided on the sale price and the proportion of shares to be sold to foreign investors. According to two of the persons, Japan Post Bank is also thinking about repurchasing part of the shares.
Since the national postal juggernaut and its two financial operations, Japan Post Bank and Japan Post Insurance Co, were listed in 2015 as part of the nation's largest privatisation in almost three decades, this would be the first such sale of shares in Japan Post Bank.
By the end of March 2026, Japan Post Holdings will have reduced its ownership in the bank and insurance sectors to 50% or less as part of its privatisation process. In terms of the insurance unit, it achieved that goal in 2021.
Companies listed on the top division of the Tokyo Stock Exchange are required to maintain a tradable share ratio of 35% or more under regulations established last year.