Last Updated on August 15, 2020, 12:01 AM AST by Anthony Morris
Japan Post Holdings has started discussions of selling off businesses of an Australian logistics company which it acquired in 2015 for around 620 billion yen ($5.8 billion) as it seeks to globalize its operations.
Two years after the acquisition of the logistics company, Japan Post was forced to write off over 400 billion yen of the acquisition costs because of sluggish sales.
The Japanese company has started seeking advice from several securities companies regarding the sale of the businesses of the struggling Australian company. It plans to choose one foreign and one Japanese brokerage to advise it.
A Japan Post executive said that the sale must be considered separately for each business.
Toll offers a range of services, from warehousing to supply chain consulting to freight transport.
The domestic delivery business of the company in Australia is responsible for most of the losses of the group. The international forwarding business has also been in losses in recent years.
A financial expert wonders if the troubled Australian company would find buyers, and there is some hindrance that a reorganization may proceed as expected.
For the fiscal year from March this year, the international logistics business of Japan Post posted an operating loss of 8.6 billion yen.
The company has also recorded an 8.2 billion yen deficit for the April-June quarter, which is even worse performance than a year earlier.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
