The Japan Post group, to be born via privatisation in October, will consist of five companies, including the mail delivery company that plans to enter the direct mail service sector, which is the turf of private home delivery companies. The mail delivery company, which have more than 100,000 employees, expects to record modest profits.

Japan Post’s privatisation plan, sent for approval on Friday to internal affairs minister Yoshihide Suga by Japan Post Corp., a privatization preparatory firm, expects the Japan Post group’s net profit to hit 587 billion yen in fiscal 2011, exceeding the 500 million yen of the NTT group–one of Japan’s largest corporate entities.

Meanwhile, Japan Post last month announced that its net profit in fiscal 2006 plunged 51 percent from the year before to 947.7 billion yen as net profit from its postal savings section was more than halved to 941.6 billion yen. It attributed the savings division’s net-profit shrinkage to a slowdown in the stock market’s activity in fiscal 2006 from the preceding fiscal year’s buoyancy.