The week that was: 26 October, 2012
Rounding up the biggest stories of the week from the pages of Post&Parcel, with a $50m deal for InPost, a new ecommerce unit at Pitney Bowes and UPS still confident about TNT…
InPost wins $50m parcel terminal deal with Australia Post
Poland’s InPost, in partnership with Neopost, revealed it has won a lucrative deal to provide 250 parcel terminals for Australia Post.
The AUD $50m ($52m USD) deal is the largest ever for InPost, part of the Integer.pl Group, and should see about 50 parcel terminals installed by mid-December. Another 200 machines would be installed between February and October 2013.
The new parcel terminals are particularly geared up for the booming ecommerce business – the Australian ecommerce market has grown by as much as 18% this year to a $16bn total, and is expected to reach a value of $27bn by 2016.
Pitney Bowes unit to drive cross-border ecommerce shipping
Pitney Bowes said it has formed a new business group to focus on global ecommerce shipping and grow its ecommerce solutions and cross-border parcel services for retailers.
The business group will help create a “seamless” online purchasing and shipping experience for consumers, it said.
Former Borderfree president Craig Reed has been appointed to lead the new unit as vice president, global ecommerce, overseeing strategy, sales and business development, reporting to Pitney Bowes mail services president Jay Oxton.
UPS still believes TNT Express acquisition will go ahead
UPS executives said they still expect the EUR 5.16bn acquisition of rivals TNT Express to go ahead early in 2013, despite receiving a Statement of Objections from the European Commission.
Atlanta-based UPS has been offering EUR 9.50 per share for its Netherlands-based rival since March, but the European Union’s executive branch launched an in-depth “phase two” investigation into the deal in July. Last week UPS and TNT Express were sent a Statement of Objections (SO) by the Commission.
Kurt Kuehn, the UPS chief financial officer said: “It’s a complex transaction and whenever we get to phase two we spend a lot of time with the Commission. We’ve got a way to go. We’ve just got the S.O., so we will be looking over that for the next couple of weeks or so.”
Marie-Christine Lombard revealed as new Geodis boss
Her leaving TNT Express in the middle of its multi-billion dollar acquisition by UPS raised a few eyebrows last month, and this week it was revealed that Marie-Christine Lombard is now CEO of SNCF’s logistics subsidiary Geodis.
Previous Geodis CEO Jean-Louis Demeulenaere is leaving the company to pursue new projects, the company said.
SNCF chairman Guillaume Pepy said: :The arrival of Marie-Christine Lombard at the SNCF group as chief executive officer of Geodis will strengthen the teams and ready Geodis for a new phase of profitable growth. She will place all her skills at the service of the Transport and Logistics division.”
And finally…
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