Swedish national post office Posten AB plans to hire additional 3,700 people across the country in the summer of 2005. The majority of the summer jobs will be occupied by students in the age group between 16 and 25, the company said.
The positions will be primarily at Posten’s 22 terminals, as well as postmen at Sweden’s 614 distribution offices. Many of the summer employees apply for the same jobs years on end.
Italian Postal and Telecommunications Services Institute (IPOST), the social security institute for Italian state-owned postal services company Poste Italiane staff, registered a surplus of 22 mln euro (USD27. 7 mln) in 2004, it was reported on May 18, 2005.
In 2004, managed funds of IPOST stood at 2. 297 bln euro (USD2. 896 bln), while cash in hand totalled 1. 315 bln euro (USD1. 658 bln) at the end of December 2004, of which 1. 195 bln euro (USD1. 507) in the accounts of the State Treasury.
Net worth of IPOST stood at 2. 57 bln euro (USD3. 24 bln). No comparative figures were available.
Read MoreAllan Leighton, the chairman of the Royal Mail, is trying to persuade the Government to take on part of its pension bill so that he can proceed with a partial privatisation of the business.
Royal Mail is trying to shift Pounds 1.5 billion of its Pounds 2.5 billion pension liabilities on to the Government’s books as a crucial step towards the partial sale.
The postal group, which declared annual operating profits of Pounds 537 million yesterday, wants the Government to take responsibility for 220,000 existing pensioners of the scheme, which started in 1969. That would strengthen Royal Mail’s balance sheet and enable it to raise up to Pounds 5 billion from banks and the market. Royal Mail executives and the Department of Trade and Industry have already held talks and the issue will be a key part of a DTI review into the impact of competition on the state-owned group.
Read MoreIn conjunction with the Deutsche Post World Net Annual General Meeting today in Cologne, Germany, thousands of DHL Teamsters throughout the United States wore “Teamsters Deliver” buttons to protest the company’s efforts to thwart organising drives at hundreds of its ground delivery subcontractors.
At the same time, a Teamsters delegation met with German and other union officials to describe DPWN subsidiary DHL’s systematic efforts to prevent its subcontractors’ employees from forming unions in their workplaces.
Read MoreAllan Leighton, the chairman of the Royal Mail, is trying to persuade the Government to take on part of its pension bill so that he can proceed with a partial privatisation of the business. Royal Mail is trying to shift Pounds 1.5 billion of its Pounds 2.5 billion pension liabilities on to the Government’s books as a crucial step towards the partial sale. The postal group, which declared annual operating profits of Pounds 537 million yesterday, wants the Government to take responsibility for 220,000 existing pensioners of the scheme, which started in 1969. That would strengthen Royal Mail’s balance sheet and enable it to raise up to Pounds 5 billion from banks and the market. Royal Mail executives and the Department of Trade and Industry have already held talks and the issue will be a key part of a DTI review into the impact of competition on the state-owned group. Executives see sorting out the pension liability as fundamental to Royal Mail’s next move because it needs to restructure its balance sheet before making substantial borrowings.
Read MoreDHL UAE has formed its first regional Customer Panel, in a bid to increase efficiency and service and become even easier to do business with. The DHL Customer Panel is made up of six key clients from different industries who will discuss issues concerning the development and streamlining of the company from a non-industry perspective. ‘The panel’s aim is to feedback views on what customers want and expect,’ said David Wild, General Manager, DHL UAE. ‘With direct customer input we hope to produce fresh and innovative ideas which will keep us ahead of the industry.’ Three customer panel meetings are planned this year and members will probe a number of issues including invoicing, account management, marketing and service. ‘The outcome of our first meeting was very positive,’ added Wild. ‘We received a number of significant suggestions and valuable feedback that we will be looking into further.’
Read MoreDeutsche Post AG CEO Klaus Zumwinkel reaffirmed the company’s full year earnings forecasts, and said he expects the state to sell off all its remaining holdings in the company in the medium term. Zumwinkel told the annual meeting that the company is sticking to its forecast of full year EBIT of at least 3.6 bln eur and a rise in net profit of 500 mln eur. Shareholders ‘will benefit (from an increase on) our 2004 earnings per share (of an estimated) 30 pct,’ he added. Zumwinkel said he expects the government and state-owned development bank Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau (KfW) to sell all of their shares in Deutsche Post in the ‘mid-term’, without giving a specific timeframe. ‘A reduction in the government’s holding to below 50 pct would be an important step in terms of market psychology… We expect that the complete privatization of our company … will be concluded in the mid-term. That is the goal in any case,’ he said.
Read MoreDHL has said it does not want to chase US market share from UPS and FedEx, signalling a reining in of the company’s ambitions in North America. John Mullen, joint chief executive of DHL Express, characterised the company’s plans in the US as “realistic and modest”, insisting it was not “setting out to create another UPS or FedEx”. His comments, at a Bear Stearns investor conference in New York, eased concern that DHL might spark a price war in the US package delivery market after two years of heavy investment. Mr Mullen said the company’s most urgent objective in the US was to improve service quality, which he described as having been “horrendous” last year. Once service improved, DHL would seek to increase prices closer to those of UPS and FedEx rather than cut them, he said. “We’re not driven by market share gains,” said Mr Mullen. “We want to get more value out of the volume we have rather than chase more volume.”
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