La Poste muscles into Germany's postal service
La Poste muscles into Germany’s postal service
From JOURNAL OF COMMERCE, January 2nd, 2001
By BRUCE BARNARD – JOC ONLINE LONDON – La Poste, France’s postal monopoly, hopes to close on a $372 million
deal that will give it control of Deutscher Paket Dienst (DPD), Germany’s
second-largest parcel delivery firm, within two weeks. La Poste will lift its
current 50% stake to 85% by acquiring the 35% shareholding of Frankfurter
Kreis, a consortium of six medium-sized forwarders and transportation
companies, including Britain’s P&O Trans European. The deal marks a setback for Britain’s Post Office which had been expected to
mount a bid for DPD using a 10% stake that its German Parcels subsidiary
acquired last August for around $75 million from Dachser, a German forwarder.
DPD’s other shareholder, with a 5% stake, is Zeitfracht, a German freight
agent.
Acquiring DPD will give La Poste a major role in Europe’s largest delivery
market. DPD, based in Aschaffenburg, handled around 330 million packages
across Europe last year and generated revenue of 1.5 billion euros ($1.45
billion). This makes it Germany’s second-largest parcel company after Deutsche
Post World Net and well ahead of German Parcel and United Parcel Service,
which moved into Germany in the 1960s.
German Parcel ruled out selling its 10% DPD stake to La Poste, prompting
speculation of a legal challenge by the French company to prevent the German
company from having access to DPD’s business plans.
If German Parcel is compelled to sell its stake in DPD it plans to absorb
Dachser into its network.
La Poste acquired a 50% stake in DPD in early 1999 after the Post Office
bought German Parcel. Both transactions were a belated response to the $5
billion expansion by Deutsche Post into logistics, express and parcel delivery
in Europe and the United States, which culminated in September with the
acquisition of a controlling interest in DHL International, the global express
carrier.
Bruce Barnard can be reached at 011-44-1223-840-461 or
[email protected]. JOURNAL OF COMMERCE, 02nd January 2001
