La Poste operating result melting away

The operating profit of Belgian postal company La Poste has nose-dived by 85 per cent from 134m euros in 1999 to 20m euros in 2001. This conclusion has appeared from the audit carried out by the supervisory directors on behalf of the federal Belgian government. In its defence, De Post refers to its hefty investment programme and redundancy plan costs.

The supervisory directors also looked into De Post’s stakes and found that the company participates in 15 stakes for an estimated total value of 151m euros. De ‘Bank van de Post’, De Post’s bank arm represents almost half of this amount. The reservations about De Post’ accounts concern the fact that booking times of costs and gains seem randomly chosen, in spite of the new and highly-acclaimed accounting system introduced in 2000.

Abstracted from De Financieel-Ekonomische – Tijd