La Poste targets parcels and services growth in new five-year plan

France’s La Poste aims to grow its international express and parcels business, build up new mailstream flows and offer new services under a five-year strategic plan unveiled yesterday, French media reported. The group is also apparently interested in troubled German mail operator PIN Group.

As part of the 2008-2012 plan “Performance and Confidence”, La Poste aims to increase its turnover by 2% a year on average and reach revenues of EUR 23.2 billion by 2012, reported Les Echos. It is targeting an operating profit of about EUR 2 billion and a profit margin of 8.5% in 2012.

Growth would be driven by the parcels and express business, which expects average annual growth of more than 5%, and by La Banque Postale. But most investment will go into the mail business which is mid-way through a major modernisation programme, the newspaper wrote.

La Tribune cited La Poste president Jean-Paul Bailly as saying that La Poste was increasingly “a service group” in which each division should focus on what it can do best. He was not questioning the postal group’s public service obligations, including the universal mail service and the loss-making newspaper distribution, but wanted their financing transparent and clarified, the newspaper said.

The AFP news agency cited Bailly as saying that the parcels and express market would be “much more of a driver in terms of development and growth”. Marc-André Feffer, strategy director, pointed out that e-commerce would generate parcels growth.

Paul-Marie Chavanne, head of parcels and express unit GeoPost, said the group, which was number two in Europe, wanted to become a “global player”, AFP reported. La Poste had last year sealed an important alliance with Air France-KLM to transport parcels in the airline’s fleet, he noted. In future, La Poste would invest in “domestic networks outside Europe”, and had recently acquired companies in Russia, South Africa, the USA and set up businesses in China and the Middle East. India and South America were also on the map.

France’s La Poste aims to grow its international express and parcels business, build up new mailstream flows and offer new services under a five-year strategic plan unveiled yesterday, French media reported. The group is also apparently interested in troubled German mail operator PIN Group.

As part of the 2008-2012 plan “Performance and Confidence”, La Poste aims to increase its turnover by 2% a year on average and reach revenues of EUR 23.2 billion by 2012, reported Les Echos. It is targeting an operating profit of about EUR 2 billion and a profit margin of 8.5% in 2012.

Growth would be driven by the parcels and express business, which expects average annual growth of more than 5%, and by La Banque Postale. But most investment will go into the mail business which is mid-way through a major modernisation programme, the newspaper wrote.

La Tribune cited La Poste president Jean-Paul Bailly as saying that La Poste was increasingly “a service group” in which each division should focus on what it can do best. He was not questioning the postal group’s public service obligations, including the universal mail service and the loss-making newspaper distribution, but wanted their financing transparent and clarified, the newspaper said.

The AFP news agency cited Bailly as saying that the parcels and express market would be “much more of a driver in terms of development and growth”. Marc-André Feffer, strategy director, pointed out that e-commerce would generate parcels growth.

Paul-Marie Chavanne, head of parcels and express unit GeoPost, said the group, which was number two in Europe, wanted to become a “global player”, AFP reported. La Poste had last year sealed an important alliance with Air France-KLM to transport parcels in the airline’s fleet, he noted. In future, La Poste would invest in “domestic networks outside Europe”, and had recently acquired companies in Russia, South Africa, the USA and set up businesses in China and the Middle East. India and South America were also on the map.

Meanwhile, German newspaper Handelsblatt reported that La Poste was interested in acquiring parts of the financially stricken postal operator PIN Group. “We are naturally looking at them,” Bailly was cited as saying. Raymond Redding, head of the mail division, said parts of PIN could survive and were of interest. “Acquisition opportunities in the mail business are very rare,” he noted. Handelsblatt wrote that La Poste might seek an acquisition in cooperation with a partner to get around the problem that the French market is not yet fully liberalised.