Newly-privatised Japan Post Bank Co (JPB), which manages about 205 trillion yen (US$1.68 trillion) in total AUM, is set to establish a private equity (PE) investment arm in order to further diversify its asset allocation capabilities.
JPB said in a statement that it has appointed Tokihiko Shimizu, a former welfare ministry bureaucrat who spearheaded the Government Pension Investment Fund’s (GPIF’s) diversification drive into alternative assets such as PE and property, as head of the new operation.
The new PE investment division is scheduled to go live on December 1.
The move comes two weeks after JPB made its IPO debut on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on November 11 along with its holding group, Japan Post Holdings and Post Insurance Co. The IPO listing, Japan’s largest privatisation in three decades, raised approximately 1.4 trillion yen for the government.
JPB is the group’s cash cow; as of the end of September this year, it had total assets of around 204.98 trillion yen. Of this, about 45.2%, or 92.7 trillion yen, was allocated to Japanese government bonds.
However, the bank recorded a 10.1% year-on-year decrease in net income for the six months ended September 30, which it attributed to an adverse business environment and low interest rates.
