Further setback for German start-up Red Parcel Post
Red Parcel Post, the planned new German parcel company, has suffered its latest setback with the loss of an important financial investor. Doubts continue to surround the planned start of operations in 2007.
Experienced German freight industry entrepreneur Manfred Boes, a former founder of German Parcel (now GLS) and recently elected as president of Fiata, the world freight forwarders association, has confirmed that he has quit as an investor in the firm. He told German logistics magazine Logistik Inside that “the new shareholder structure does not match our planning”.
News magazine Wirtschaftswoche had reported that Boes had sold his 24% stake in Red Parcel Post to Walter Hellmich, a Duisburg-based construction industry entrepreneur who was thus now the company’s majority shareholder. Hellmich is also head of German football club MSV Duisburg.
Dieter Seegers-Krückeberg, Red Parcel Post founder and supervisory board chairman, declined to confirm details of the new investor structure. But he stressed that the company’s financing remained intact.
Industry experts doubt whether the operational planning timescale can now be kept to. Red Parcel Post had planned to launch operations in the second quarter of 2007. But this date could slip back to 2008.
