Dutch and Germans plot UK postal invasion
The two continental postal giants, Germany’s Deutsche Post and the quoted Dutch group TPG, are both competing to buy one of Britain’s biggest independent private mail companies.
Deutsche Post and TPG have asked advisers to study the imminent sale of DX Mail, the £250m document exchange and specialist courier business owned by Hays.
The delivery business is made more attractive by the fact it was recently awarded the first long-term licence to introduce additional mail services for businesses from Postcomm, the industry regulator.
The licence, which will run for a minimum of seven years, will allow DX to deliver business mail to any business address in the country. The contract also includes a range of innovative service options. The most important of these allows DX to offer a door to door pre-8am next-day mail delivery.
Both Deutsche Post, which already controls Securicor, and TPG are looking at ways to make further inroads into the British market to compete against Royal Mail. The acquisition of DX would help in achieving this goal. It already carries 1m items of mail a day on behalf of 30,000 customers.
They will face tough competition from private-equity groups. Colin Matthews, chief executive of Hays, has received letters from at least 30 potential bidders expressing interest in buying the business. Matthews has yet to appoint advisers but the sale process is expected to start early in the new year.
Matthews, a former senior manager at British Airways who joined Hays just last year, is leading a shake-up at the company.
He is undertaking a sweeping disposal programme with the aim of turning the company into a recruitment specialist.
Matthews has already pushed through several sales and last month he realised Pounds 102m after selling part of the group’s logistics arm to Platinum Equity, an American buy-out firm. A further Pounds 100m is expected to be made from the sale of property in Britain, Benelux and France. Earlier this year the company disposed of its German logistics operation and American home delivery business.
The DX operation was originally set up by solicitors for the delivery of legal papers between practices. It has since been extended to include other professions.
Subscribers have to deliver mail to and collect it from local centres but delivery between centres is guaranteed for the next day.
When the disposal process is finished Matthews intends to step down as chief executive. He will be replaced by Denis Waxman, who runs Hays Personnel.
