The week that was: 10 August, 2012
Rounding up the biggest stories of the week from the pages of Post&Parcel, including the latest on the TNT Express acquisition by UPS, USPS financial woes, and InPost’s massive parcel terminal plans…
USPS reveals latest loss total, confirms new shape of rural post offices
The US Postal Service revealed that it has lost $11.6n so far in the first nine months of its 2012 fiscal year – including a whopping $5.2bn in the third quarter alone – as Congress continues to ignore its troubles.
The world’s biggest postal operator said much of the year’s loss was taken up by payments it is required to make to the federal government to cover future retiree healthcare liabilities, but which it is refusing to pay.
This week also saw USPS publishing a Final Rule defining its new-style part-time post offices and main administrative post offices. Staff are set to begin visiting 13,000 communities soon to discuss how their local post offices will change to cut operating costs.
Judge orders Canada Post union deal arbitrator to quit
Canada’s Federal Court of Justice has ordered the arbitrator appointed by ministers to decide on a major new union deal with Canada Post to quit.
Guy Dufort was the second arbitrator to be appointed by the Canadian government to decide on a new collective bargaining agreement with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) since the union’s members were ordered back to work just over a year ago.
The first appointee, Justice Coulter Osbourne, resigned last November under pressure from the union regarding his lack of French language skills.
InPost sets up JV to lead massive expansion of parcel terminals
Poland’s growth-hungry Integer.pl Group has set up a new joint venture under its easyPack brand to take forward the international growth of its parcel terminals business.
easyPack is a joint venture with Luxembourg-based investment firm Asterina Investments, part of the PineBridge group, and received the green light of regulator UOKiK last month.
The aim of the project is to expand the number of InPost’s World Mail Award-winning automated self-service parcel terminal/locker stations to 16,000 in Europe over the next four years. The terminals allow ecommerce consumers to access their purchases 24 hours a day from secure lockers.
TNT Express “absolutely confident” of EU approval for UPS deal
TNT Express board members said they were “absolutely confident” that European competition authorities will approve the company’s acquisition by rivals UPS.
In an Extraordinary General Meeting in Amsterdam this week, shareholders expressed concern about the risk that the EU Commission’s decision to subject the proposed EUR 5bn takeover to addition antitrust review could see them rejecting the deal entirely.
But executives and board members said that “many” proposed acquisitions go to a second-stage EU Commission review, and that 90% of them are subsequently approved.
PostNL mail business problems drag down Q2 results
Problems in the reorganisation of PostNL’s letter business caused its domestic mail division to slip into a loss for the second quarter of the year, wiping out gains from parcels growth, according to its latest results.
The Dutch postal operator said underlying revenues in the second quarter were down 0.2% compared to the same period in 2011, to EUR 1.02bn, with profits down 15% to EUR 46m for the quarter.
Good performances in the company’s parcels business and international units saw growth countered by the weaker performance in the domestic mail division, Mail in the Netherlands. The company had to call a halt to its major network transformation programme in the Netherlands back in April after receiving complaints about delivery quality in areas that had been restructured.
