DHL falls on hard times
Even though DHL International, a subsidiary of the Deutsche Post World Net (DPWN), increased its turnover during the first six months of this year by 9.4% to EUR 2.4 billion, the company still made a loss.
This came to light indirectly in the interim business report of the German airline Lufthansa for the first half of 2001, which has a 25% stake in DHL. This substantiated reports by the German news agency Deutschc Dcpeschenagentur (dpa). which already reported a loss for DHL in mid-August (see ITJ 36/2001 page 15). Lufthansa did not
put a figure on DHL’s loss. The German carrier revealed that its pretax profit had been <> by the financial result, above all by the negative income from participations and joint ventures that had dropped by FUR 55 million to produce a loss of El R 205 million.
Lufthansa attributed these disappointing figures primarily to problems with
DHL International and to the adverse impact of the seasonal nature of leisure travel on the travel agent’s Thomas Cook results.
DPWN owns 46.3% of the shares of the integrator DHL. The company still needs the approval of the competition authorities in several countries before it can take a majority stake.
