Luxembourg Pin Group To Grow Further in Germany
Luxembourg-based private mail delivery group Pin Group plans to become the second-largest sector company in Germany after Deutsche Post, group CEO Guenter Thiel said on July 14, 2006.
Pin Group, owned by German publishers Georg von Holtzbrinck, Axel Springer and WAZ, as well as by investment company Rosalia, plans to cover the entire German territory by the end of 2006. The group expects to pay its first dividend in 2008, when Deutsche Post’s monopoly will expire.
Thiel will focus on the co-operation with other publishing houses. Most of the private mail delivery companies in Germany are active on the newspaper and magazine market.
Pin Group recently signed a co-operation agreement with local postal services firm Citipost, owned by Madsack publishing house, which is active, with 1,500 postmen, in Lower Saxony and the states in eastern Germany. Delivery service West Mail, a unit of DuMont Schauberg, Rheinisch-Bergische Verlagsgesellschaft and W. Girardet, will soon grant Pin Group access to Rhineland, Lower Rhine and Bergisches Land. West Mail employs 420 postmen.
The two new partners will receive together almost ten pct of Pin Group’s shares, which will decrease the stake of the old owners to 22.5 pct.
Pin has also bought local rivals Porto Sparen, Speedy Express and Brief Express Roeder in Schleswig-Holstein, Berlin and Brandenburg, respectively. Combinedly, the three firms employ 230 postmen.
Thiel plans also to integrate German media firm Holzbrinck’s mail delivery units Trier, Saarbruecken, Wuerzburg and Lausitz.
In the future, all of the services will act under the Pin-Mail brand name.
Pin Group is expected to generate a turnover of 200 mln euro (253.1 mln USD) in 2006, compared with 80 mln euro (101.2 mln USD) in 2005. The group is seen servicing some 400 million mailings in the year. Pin Group expects to break even in 2006 and turn a profit in 2007.
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