$2.5 billion float.

The company said on Monday that it would probably go public during the next 18 months.

The core of the public offering will be the 20 percent stake that Japanese Airlines sold on Monday to two specially established investment trusts for nearly $300 million.

The DHL network operates in 228 countries, employs 63,000 people, has a fleet of 200 aircraft and handles traffic worth about $5 billion a year.

The group operation is run by two separate companies - DHL Airways in the United States and DHL International in the rest of the world.

DHL International, registered in Bermuda but with a head office in Brussels, owns 25 percent of the American business and handles 80 percent of the network traffic.

Analysts believe it could be worth up to $2.5 billion in the wake of the recent flotation of United Parcel Service, but industry sources say that figure may be on the high side.

Simon Clayton, DHL International's finance director, said the public offering would probably take place in 2001. It would include an issue of new shares to provide the group with development funds.

DHL - in which Deutsche Post and Lufthansa each have a 25 percent holding - wants to complete several investment projects before going to market.

These include the replacement of a large number of its Boeing 707 jets with 44 Boeing 757s bought from British Airways and converted into cargo carrying planes.

It is also working on its ground facilities in Cologne, Singapore, Japan and at East Midlands airport in Britain.

Mr. Clayton said the group was also carrying out a big legal restructuring which would move its registered office from Bermuda to a European country - with Belgium being the front runner.

He said the investment trusts that bought JAL's 20 percent stake and a 3 percent holding sold earlier this year by Nissho Iwai were effectively warehousing the shares until the float.

The trusts were funded by a banking syndicate headed by West LB, with the debt repayment being guaranteed by present DHL shareholders.

The express mail business is growing rapidly. DHL, which is the largest of the cross border air express operators outside the US, is expected to have grown by 20 percent in 1999.

Mr. Clayton said that much growth had been driven by large information and telecommunications groups such as Siemens, Hewlett Packard, Lucent Technologies and Compaq, using the group's specialist logistics to ship high value-added products. "A lot of the business is geared to spare parts rather than finished products,'' he said.

DHL runs small inventories for a number of its customers, allowing parts to be shipped within hours, rather than days.

The second big growth driver has been the rapid expansion of e-commerce. "Big business customers are looking to integrate our shipment services into their own distribution services,'' Mr. Clayton said.

DHL was also working with a number of national post offices in order to provide doorstep deliveries to domestic customers.

JAL is retaining a 6 percent stake in DHL International. The remaining 21% is owned by the group's employees.