Italian DGE Aims to Become Parcel Player

Italian parcels company Direzione Gruppo Executive (DGE), which is 100 percent controlled by General Logistics Systems (GLS), aims to be among the top three international parcels operators in Italy in two to three years, a senior executive told Reuters on Thursday. ‘We are in sixth or seventh position now but aim to take one of the spots held in Italy now by Deutsche Post, TNT and UPS,’ said Alfredo Gabriele, director general of DGE. GLS, the European parcels unit of British state-owned postal operator Consignia, originally bought an initial 49 percent stake in DGE in September 2000 before it announced it had raised its stake to 100 percent this week. ‘We aim to expand our business, helped in part by the accord that Consignia has for the delivery of U.S. mail in Europe’ said Gabriele. Last year DGE handled 21 million national parcel deliveries and 1.1 million international deliveries, generating 280 million euros in turnover. Gabriele said he hoped that DGE’s international parcels business would grow to become as strong as its national delivery operation, where it held 12.5 percent of the market and ranked third in market share to TNT and Bartolini, which is 20 percent controlled by the Italian post office. While DGE owns its nine Italian hubs, its over 140 national depots are run by 80 franchise holders. Up until this week the 51 percent of DGE not controlled by GLS was held by some of those franchise holders. ‘Despite no longer controlling the company, the franchise holders have very good relations with GLS,’ said Gabriele. By buying DGE, GLS has acquired the 9.74 stake DGE has in the General Parcel network. GLS now owns 80 percent of the network.