Deutsche Post World Net sees higher profits

Deutsche Post World Net AG expects to post higher profits next year and still sees full year 2003 EBITDA at €2.9 bln, management board chairman Klaus Zumwinkel said.

‘I expect next year that our earnings will be higher than this year. And with a dividend payout ratio of 25-30% based on higher earnings, then naturally we would have higher dividends,’ he told the VAP Foreign Correspondents Association last night.

He said these estimates for higher dividends are independent of any proceeds from the planned IP0 of the company’s Postbank AG unit.

Zumwinkel said his company plans to use the cash from the IPO to cut the debts of Deutsche Post as well as to expand and integrate its distribution centres in Europe.

He estimated the Postbank IPO will take place in autumn next year through the Frankfurt bourse.

Postbank’s value is ‘at least’ 5 bln eur and Deutsche Post wants to sell ‘up to 49 pct’ of its shares at the IPO, he added.

He said the IPO proceeds will not result in a special dividend payment to the German government, which is Deutsche Post’s major shareholder.

‘The German government will be handled like any other shareholder,’ he said.

Asked to comment on market talk that Deutsche Post is interested in buying the UK company logistics Exel, he said: ‘There’s nothing in it.’