La Poste beats JP Morgan and Bridgepoint to Spanish Seur
The owners of Spanish express courier company Seur have entered into an agreement with French postal group La Poste to prevent the entry of US venture capital company JP Morgan Partners and British venture capital group Bridgepoint. The 63 franchisers and shareholders in the group exercised their pre-emptive rights and held onto the 21.4 per cent of the company and the Madrid office of the firm, which accounts for more than 18 per cent of total company turnover, that the founder Justo Yufera, had offered for sale. The Spanish restrictive practices commission has yet to give the operation the green light.
Seur is the largest express courier company in Spain, with 3,577 delivery vehicles and employing 7,940 staff. Last year, it generated turnover of 499.68m euros, up 9.6 per cent on the 2002 result. La Poste is the third largest postal service in the European Union, behind German counterpart Deutsche Post and Dutch counterpart TNT.
Original article by Javier Romera
Abstracted from Expansion
