La Poste seeks partner to expand financial unit
La Poste, the French post office, is seeking a partnership with a bank to help it expand its financial services arm, one of its fastest growing businesses.
Martin Vial, chairman, said La Poste was searching for “powerful allies” that could add expertise and allow it to offer more financial products.
He also said that La Poste would “examine the opportunities which could arise” to expand in the UK. Consignia, its struggling British counterpart, has been forced into a radical overhaul and the British regulator has called for more competition.
The search for a banking partner comes ahead of talks this year between state-owned La Poste and the government to review its strategy. La Poste has about 17,000 outlets in France and is the country’s third-largest operator of cash machines.
Although La Poste has ties with French bank Caisse des Depots, Mr Vial said the company was “looking a bit everywhere” to find a banking partner.
Dexia has been cited as a possibility, especially since Pierre Richard, chairman of the Franco-Belgian bank, recently said he expected Dexia to be linked to another French banking network within a year.
A goodwill write-off of Euros 170m (Dollars 150m) pushed La Poste into a 2001 net loss of Euros 95m, compared with a net profit of Euros 139.2m in 2000, due to a restructuring at GeoPost, the parcel business that has spearheaded La Poste’s European expansion. Last year the French group took control of Deutscher Paket Dienst, Germany’s second-biggest parcel company.
La Poste’s assets under management have increased on average 6 per cent a year in the past five years to Euros 195.1m. This year the post office also played an important part in the switch to the euro, overseeing one fifth of the currency conversion transactions in France.
