Deutsche Post expands again in US
Alliances and acquisition activity in the European and global postal markets has continued this year with a series of recent announcements by European mail and express operators.
Deutsche Post has announced that it has made two new acquisitions in the US postal market. Its subsidiary Deutsche Post Global Mail USA has reached agreements to acquire U.S. mail service providers SmartMail Services, a leading provider of transport and sorting services for flat mail, and QuikPak Inc. a market leader in catalogue fulfilment. The new organisation will employ 1,850 people in the USA and will generate revenue of about $600m (€500m). It will utilise the network of USPS with which the companies already have existing agreements.
Meanwhile in Europe TNT Express has announced that it has entered into an alliance with Norway Post which will enable it to sell its global express products through Norway’s post office network. This is in addition to a similar deal with Sweden’s national postal operator, Posten.
In the UK there has been better news for the beleaguered national postal operator, Royal Mail. The organisation is two years into its recovery plan and is expected to announce operating profits of £250m (€365m) for the year ending March 2004, a significant improvement on the £197m (€307m) loss suffered last year.
This turnaround has prompted civil servants to once again consider the sale of the group, which could be valued at £4bn (€5.84bn), representing the largest privatisation in the UK since in 1996.
The recent problems encountered by Royal Mail have, in part, been caused by the increased competition within the UK mail market, especially in the more profitable business sector. In the past few months, DPWN, TPG, Hays and Business Post have all been awarded licences to provide competitive services in the lucrative business to business arena.
