TPG Post will take over German regional mail delivery company mailXpress GmbH in Stuttgart, TNT Post said on December 19, 2005. The acquisition will come in effect on January 1, 2006. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
With the acquisition, TPG Post will expand its network in the region of Stuttgart, southwestern Germany.
DHL Express (USA) today announced new rates effective February 5, 2006, in line with recently announced annual increases in the express and parcel industry, including a 5.5% increase for DHL Domestic Air Express and International Express and a 3.9% rise for DHL Ground Service. Concurrent with the 2006 rate changes, DHL will institute a cap of 14.5% on its published fuel surcharge for Domestic Air Express and International Express, a move that will allow customers to better predict and control their transportation spending, and will reduce the index used to determine its air fuel surcharge by 2%, resulting in an effective rate increase for DHL Domestic Air Express and International Express services of 3.5%. The fuel surcharge index calculation for Ground products remains unchanged. Rates for DHL@Home, the company’s expedited business-to-residence shipping service, will increase an average of 6.5%, effective January 2, 2006.
Read MoreThousands of Royal Mail customers who have received poor service could be in line for new compensation payments following a High Court ruling today. The Consumer Council for Postal Services, known as Postwatch, won a legal challenge against Postcomm, the UK postal regulatory body. The case arose after Postcomm refused last January to order the Royal Mail, which has already paid out some GBP35 million, to pay another GBP35 million to users of bulk mail services which were not up to standard. Postcomm declined to make an enforcement order under the 2000 Postal Services Act for the financial year 2003-4. Postwatch argued that Postcomm was under a statutory duty to enforce. Today, Mr Justice Sullivan, sitting at the High Court in London, ruled in favour of Postwatch but gave Postcomm and Royal Mail time to consider appealing to the Court of Appeal.
Read MoreUS global integrator will not be following TNT’s example in quitting logistics.
Announcing its decision largely to withdraw from logistics next year, TNT said earlier this month it had concluded the group’s strength lay in ‘designing, implementing and running delivery network businesses’. The implication was that the majority of TNT’s logistics activities were not ‘network’ operations. In contrast, rival global integrator UPS apparently remains committed to developing its worldwide logistics business as very much a network-based activity. That certainly was the picture painted by Ian Chong, European director of strategy for the US company’s UPS Supply Chain Solutions division when he outlined his organisation’s thinking on that issue after the TNT announcement. ‘In our world, logistics is a network service,’ he said. ‘That is the main focus for us now and has been from day one.’ By that, he confirmed, he meant that a large percentage of the product handled by UPS SCS was routed through the parent company’s package and freight networks.
Helen Weir, Group Finance Director of Lloyds TSB, is to be appointed a non-executive member of Royal Mail’s board, it was announced today. The move was warmly welcomed by Royal Mail’s Chairman, Allan Leighton, who said: “I am delighted Helen is joining us. Her breadth of senior financial and operational experience will strengthen Royal Mail’s board and be an asset to the company as it tackles the challenges of competing in a market opening to full competition on January 1.”
Read MoreThe European Commission will approve on Wednesday the creation of a new entity which will regroup the banking activities of France’s La Poste, said a source close to the case. The commission, which has been examining the case for several months, will only give its ‘partial’ approval, the source said, as Brussels can only give a general green light, but leave other issues untouched, such as the ‘Livret A’ savings account distribution monopoly which La Poste has with the Caisses d’Epargne.
Read MoreTNT, the Dutch post group that is selling under-performing logistics operations and is shadowed by a tax probe, announced yesterday that it had hired a chemicals industry veteran as chief financial officer. The mail group named Henk van Dalen, managing board member responsible for finance at DSM, the speciality chemicals and life science company, to succeed Jan Haars, who leaves TNT on March 31. Mr van Dalen has spent his entire 29-year career with DSM, which started life as a state-owned mining company. He joins TNT at a time of unusual turbulence for the post and parcel group.
Read MoreRoyal Mail’s hopes of persuading ministers to back its plans for employee share ownership will suffer a setback next week when a committee of MPs declares it is unconvinced by the scheme. The Commons trade and industry committee, which publishes on Tuesday the findings of a long inquiry into postal market liberalisation, is expected to be dismissive of the chairman Allan Leighton’s proposal. The state-owned postal operator, which faces full market liberalisation from January 1, wants to offer employees tradeable shares in the business, but has encountered fierce opposition to the plan from trade unionists and Labour MPs.
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