UK Royal Mail appoints Wholesale Director

Royal Mail today announced the appointment of Stephen Agar, currently the Group’s Regulatory Affairs Director, as Director of its Wholesale arm, which deals with letters which are collected and sorted by Royal Mail’s competitors before being handed to Royal Mail for final mile delivery. Mr Agar will report to Ian Griffiths, the Managing Director of Royal Mail Letters, who joins the company early in 2006.

Competitors have been allowed to use Royal Mail’s delivery network, and its postmen and women, since 2004. Royal Mail is currently delivering around 90 million letters on behalf of competitors every month, and volumes are expected to reach an annual total of one billion items by the end of the financial year in March 2006. Royal Mail charges competitors for access to its network, but makes considerably lower margins on this traffic compared to ordinary business mail.