Belgium’s La Poste injects EUR 22m in Taxipost
La Poste/De Post, Belgian’s national postal operator, has decided to inject EUR 22 million into its express and parcels subsidiary Taxipost, according to Belgian media reports.
The parent company believes Taxipost is on the right track to recovery following losses in 2005, although it is not expected to have made a profit in 2006 nor to make one this year, reports Brussels-based business newspaper L’Echo. The subsidiary now has a capital of EUR 44 million, says L’Echo.
La Poste is reinvesting in Taxipost following a good 2006. The postal group, which serves both the Dutch-speaking north, where it is known as De Post, and the French-speaking region in the south of the country, announced operating profit up 57% to an EBIT of EUR 100 million, and revenues up 5% to EUR 1.12 billion, in the first half of the year.
The group expects the restructuring of its distribution network to increasingly bear fruit, although it could be in for a year of industrial strife as unions claim management is planning 2,000 redundancies this year and are demanding a 5% salary rise for postal workers.
Taxipost has landed several important distribution deals in the highly competitive Belgian market over the 18 months, including one to distribute tickets for event organiser Sherpa and another delivering parcels for online retailer Neckermann.
New business since 2005 has seen its parcels volume increase by over one million and the company was last year named one of the top three performing express and parcel subsidiaries of European posts, in a study by the International Post Corporation.
