The week that was: 11 November 2011
Rounding up the top stories from this week’s coverage, including progress for a USPS rescue package, Royal Mail’s investment for Christmas, positive results for Deutsche Post and less positive results for PostNL…
USPS rescue package passes out of Senate committee
The US Senate’s Government Affairs committee passed the bipartisan 21st Century Postal Service Act, which will now face a hearing by the full Senate.
The Act proposes to provide a $6.9bn rebate to the struggling USPS to help it cut its work force by 100,000, restructure its multi-billion dollar healthcare prefunding obligations and allow sale of additional non-postal products.
This week’s hearing saw the Senate committee adding new requirements for retail standards when closing post offices, while rejecting proposals to immediately allow a move to five-day-a-week delivery, leaving in place the proposal for a two-year ban on eliminating Saturday deliveries.
Royal Mail gears up for Christmas
Royal Mail is investing £15m extra in tackling this year’s festive season surge of mail volumes, as the rise of online shopping is expected to bring record numbers of packages.
The UK operator is setting up nine dedicated package hubs around the country to sort a major part of the parcels that require delivery, and has shelled out for an additional 73,000 mail containers and one million trays for the transportation of 2bn items in the Christmas mailbag.
It will also be taking on 18,000 temporary staff to support its permanent 130,000 staff, revealing last week that it has received 80,000 applications for the positions after a month-long recruitment campaign.
Deutsche Post in positive mood – even in Asian market
Deutsche Post lifted its forecast for the rest of 2011, after making a 70% increase in net profit in its latest quarter partly thanks to strong growth in parcel volumes.
The world’s biggest logistics company issued its third quarter results this morning, showing a stronger than expected performance in its Mail division and at DHL, and unlike some rival integrators, achieving major growth in Asia.
Group revenues increased 2.5% compared to the same quarter last year, to EUR 13.1bn. Adjusting for currency movements and one-off consolidation costs, the growth was 5.7%. Operating earnings grew by 18.5% to EUR 646m.
PostNL suffers with TNT Express shareholding
PostNL has seen addressed mail volumes surpassing expectations and good growth in parcels in its third quarter, but its pension fund and stake in TNT Express have dragged down its results.
Operating income was down 15.7% to EUR 70m compared to the same quarter in 2010 thanks to declining mail volumes and pension costs, though partly offset by efficiency savings and contributions from parcels and international services. Underlying revenues for the quarter were down 2% to EUR 996m.
PostNL, which split from TNT Express in May, took a EUR 337m write-down from its stake in the integrator during the third quarter. Excluding the impact of TNT Express, which has struggled with declines in Asian demand, PostNL would have made a EUR 27m profit for its latest quarter. As it was, the company recorded a EUR 313 loss for the period.
