Portuguese regulator rejects CTT post office plan
Portugal’s recently privatised postal operator CTT Group has been ordered to rethink its retail network strategy. The nation’s communications regulator ANACOM has rejected the company’s proposals for the density of its post office network.
ANACOM said CTT had failed to provide required assurances that it will keep open enough post offices to make its postal services accessible to the entire population.
The regulator said it wanted to see a maximum distance set regarding how far people will have to travel to access a post office, in urban or rural areas.
CTT was criticised for failing to take population distribution into account in its proposals for postbox locations, or the nature of urban and rural areas and the distance between postboxes.
“The CTT plan does not duly protect the provision of postal services as included within the universal service obligation for the entire population, because it does not render the correct relationship between the distance between postal access points and the population,” said the regulator.
ANACOM said CTT Group has 30 days to review the rejected proposal, and take account of the regulator’s concerns.
CTT Group was floated on the Lisbon Stock Exchange at the end of last year by the Portuguese government, with a 70% stake put up for sale, most of which went to institutional investors.
CTT Group’s turnover has been falling in recent years along with mail volumes, with 2012 generating EUR 714m in revenue, down 6.7 on the year before. Pre-tax profit in 2012 was EUR 80m, down 13% year-on-year, with the profit margin narrowing from 12% in 2011 to 11.2% in 2012.
