04/11/2015 Asia Business Report

Japan Post's share price soars ahead of its long-awaited stock market

debut. And we need the woman making her mark in India's male dominated

family businesses. Thank you for joining us on Asia Business Report.

It is the world's biggest stock market debut this year and shares of

Japan Post have started trading in Tokyo, jumping more than 16% from

the initial floating price at the opening. Here is a look at the

market right now in Tokyo pulls out as you can see, the Nikkei is up.

Along with its insurance and bank subsidiaries, the Japan Post listing

has raised nearly $12 billion. In Japan, postal workers have always

done more than just delivering the mail. They have long been a mobile

banking service, collecting savings and selling insurance. And it has

been a popular place for Japanese people to put their money. The Post

office hold savings of more than $1.5 trillion, making it in effect

the world's biggest bank. Much of that has been invested in government

bonds or used to fund public works spending. Ten years ago, the

decision to privatise Japan Post was made by this man, the former prime

minister, Junichiro Koizumi. He argued that the enormous assets

would be spent more efficiently in private hands. It was a

controversial move but it is finally going ahead. 80% of Japan Post is

being offered to Japanese individuals, while the other 20% of

the shares are sold to big institutional investors overseas. In

this first round, the government is only selling down one tenth of its

holding, but the plan is to gradually sell more of its shares.

While it is a big change for Japan post, there is one service that will

not be affected, and that is male and parcel deliveries. It's 24,000

branches will continue operating business as usual.

Thank you for joining us. Well, it has been ten years of political work

and finally Japan Post is listed on the stock market. Are you impressed

by the results? I think that it was pretty good. It was oversubscribed

but it is doing very well, I think, considering that there have been

lots of problems yet unresolved. It is strong but can it diversify

overseas? What about regulations? Will they be good enough? And there

are many governance problems as well. But despite all of that, it

kicked off quite nicely. And answered questions... --

unanswered. When do you think they will be answered? I think that what

they have to do is deregulate in order to get the full benefit. They

have to do the full listing as soon as possible. The thing is that they

have so much power, so much potential, domestically but they can

only release this potential won't rings are deregulated. -- once

things get deregulated. Can they go overseas? These things have to be

regulated. But again, that is only possible once they are fully listed

and that is still a long way off. What comes next for Shinzo Abe and

his reform programme? I think that he has to get the capital

expenditure going or else the cycle of the Japanese economy will not

really perpetuate. For him, in order to induce more spending back

operations, that will be necessary and corporate tax cuts will help

with that. -- induce more spending by corporations. Thank you.

The Asia-Pacific region is an expanding market for everything from

pharmaceuticals to consumer electronics. Is also a huge growth

market for insurance. Asian companies are set to grow even more

rapidly, up to three times current global growth rates. Lloyd's of

London is hoping to take advantage of this. Its first female chief

executive joined me earlier in Singapore. Insurance growth in some

parts of the world, particularly in Asia, is almost double economic

growth, so insurance is really expanding. People are buying

insurance for the first time and business is growing and insurance is

a critical part of the confidence required for businesses to

invest... They are buying insurance against the slowdown in their

economies and companies. They are buying insurance to support

investment for the future. And there is so much growth and investment

going on. And our speciality is all about writing those risks. And how

important is the Chinese market to the company's growth? We have been

in China for a few years and we are very pleased with how it is

progressing. What kind of obstacles are you facing in the mainland?

Actually, it is a really vibrant insurance market. We are in the

specialist space, so we are adding value to businesses. We provide

security for insurance companies in China. But what about insurance

against cyber attacks? Has it become popular in Asia? Not yet. Most cyber

insurance has been purchased by US businesses, even though we know that

cyber attacks could cost the entire global economy up to $1 million per

year. You recently came top of the power list of lesbian, gay, bisexual

and transgender people. How do you get productivity in your workforce?

Whatever you are, whatever your background, whatever you bring to

work, we want you to bring your entire self to work. That will lead

to more productivity and the company will be more successful.

India's family-owned businesses account for almost two thirds of the

company's GDP and in way over half of its workforce but very few are

run by women, as male heirs usually inherit the business. Bucking that

tradition is one woman in the south of the country.

If your family has been running a business for over 100 years, it is

probably fair to assume that you too would operate the business one day,

but not in the case of this woman, who was married just 17 in keeping

with tradition. As a woman, she was never expected to take over the

family company. The industry associations had stalled what's been

added 70 's and for them to see a young woman coming in and having an

opinion, it was a bit humiliating for me in the early years that I was

not taken seriously. Nearly 30 years ago, Rajshree was thrown into the

family business when her father died suddenly. As part of the sixth

generation of the group, she had to take over the running of several

educational and philanthropic in dictation -- institutions in

southern India but she was unprepared for the challenge. The

banks came down very heavy on me and said, young lady, your father has

gone and who is going to sign the personal guarantees? Who is going to

make sure that the money is coming back to us? Decades later, she has

expanded the company into textile mills, sugar and chemical industries

and a string of businesses ranging from education to energy. But she is

still among just a handful of women who run industries in India. Do you

think that things have really changed? It is only by default that

women if at all get into the business. In my own family business,

I'm not allowed to sit on the Board of Trustees because I'm a daughter

and not allowed to participate. Yes, it is still a feudal society.

Despite her achievements, Rajshree Pathy says that as a woman in

today's India, it is still a challenge to make your Mark.

And most Asian stock markets are in positive territory after the US

equities market moved solidly higher overnight, helped along by a rally

by energy companies due to an advance in the price of oil. Thank

you for joining us. Goodbye for now.

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