La Poste reports substantial rise in profit for 2005

La Poste, the French national postal services group, has announced an increase of nearly 50 per cent in its net profit for 2005, to 557m euros, for a 3.5 per cent increase in turnover, to 19.3bn euros. This positive performance comes on the back of an improvement in the group’s operating margin, which increased from 1.7 per cent in 2003 to 3.9 per cent in 2005. The group is facing the challenge of the complete liberalisation of the postal services market in 2009. Some 65 per cent of its turnover is already generated on markets open to competition, and 15 per cent of it is generated abroad. In financial services, La Poste has created a postal bank which will compete on a very open market. Although the bank is relatively well off in terms of the structure it already has in place, it is handicapped by a limited range of services, any extension of which has to be negotiated with the government.