Itella sells off German print business in management buyout

Finland’s postal operator Itella has sold off its printing business in Germany through a management buyout, but looks set to take a EUR 14m hit from the deal. Two senior executives from the Itella Information unit in Germany, Philippe Coquelet and Thomas Simon, have taken control of the business as of the start of this month, renaming the firm docsellent GmbH.

Itella said today that about 100 employees would transfer to the new company, which will continue to work with the Finnish company as a partner.

The postal group is currently in the middle of a EUR 100m cost-cutting campaign and has been reviewing its operations in Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Russia, looking to make changes after recording a EUR 16.4m loss during 2011.

Itella sold its Danish printing business back in January.

Today Itella said its German print operations had been in need of “considerable change” prior to the management buyout, and some measures had already been completed, which together with the management buyout will see Itella taking a one-off EUR 14m loss within its second quarter results.

Local

After selling off the print business, Itella Information continues to operate in Germany from its Hanover and Halle offices, where around 120 staff are based, with docsellent as a printing partner.

Petri Karjalainen, VP of customer operations at Itella Information, said: “docsellent GmbH will serve as local German printing partner for Itella Information, and printing is part of Itella Information’s order-to-cash offering together with cash flow automation solutions and finance and accounting bsiness process oursourcing services.”

The docsellent executives, who have been with Itella Information for several years, said their new company would mean a more personal, flexible and local service to customers in the German printing sector.

Philippe Coquelet, the former CFO of Itella Information GmbH, said: “The printing business is very local. There are standardised production requirements in each country, and it is better to differentiate and add value with an international partner network.”