First post – and the last – for Consignia

CONSIGNIA said yesterday it was “more likely than not” to publish its annual report and accounts this week – the first and the last time it will do so under its unpopular brand. The group, formerly the Post Office, will simultaneously announce that it is to ditch its 16-month-old name and call the entire business The Royal Mail. “The chairman [Allan Leighton] has stated it’s unfortunate that when the name changed, it coincided with when things started to go wrong,” a spokesman confirmed yesterday. Last year’s re-branding exercise cost the company pounds 2m and gave it, according to chief executive John Roberts, a “modern, meaningful and entirely appropriate” name which “describes the full scope of the Post Office in a way that the words `post’ and `office’ cannot”. It is widely expected that Mr Roberts will use the occasion of the annual results to step down from the group, although the spokesman would not confirm his imminent departure. He did, however, say that further job cuts would be announced. The loss of 17,000 more jobs is expected, in addition to the 13,000 that Consignia said in March would have to go. Consignia’s results have been awaited for some time but, while saying it was “probable” they would come this week, it denied yesterday that anything could be read into a delay. “It’s the first year we’ve done them in this way,” said the spokesman (Consignia was only granted plc status in March last year). “It’s a matter of trying to get everyone together to answer questions. It’s logistics rather than anything sinister.” The company’s losses for last year are expected to be about pounds 1.1 billion, after the cost of restructuring ballooned from an initial forecast of pounds 400m to pounds 800m. The losses have prompted confidence that the Government will release the pounds 1.8 billion held on Consignia’s books but controlled by the Treasury. Consignia insists the restructuring will continue beyond the group’s second name change within two years: “We’ll be making an announcement about our name, but that’s not the most important thing. What’s important is to become one of the most successful postal companies in the world, as we have been in the past.”