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Belgian Post eyes Greek express company

Posted by | Sep 25, 2008 | |

Belgian Post is close to buying the express business of the Greek post office, according to newspaper reports.

The Belgian national postal operator is heading a consortium also comprising financial investors that would buy Tachimetafores, the express courier subsidiary of the Greek post office ELTA, the Belgian publication Trends-Tendances reported.

Citing Greek media, the publication wrote that Belgian Post was the final remaining bidder following the withdrawal of Deutsche Post and a dozen originally interested parties. A deal could be sealed within two months, it said.

Tachimetafores has revenues of EUR 30 million, and expects to make a small profit of EUR 700,000, this year, according to the report. The sale is part of the search for a “strategic partner” for ELTA ahead of postal liberalisation, which is scheduled in Greece for 2013.

A Belgian Post spokesman declined to make any comment on the topic, the publication added.

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Postwatch Warns Of Turbulent Times Ahead For UK Postal Industry

Posted by | Sep 25, 2008 | |

Postwatch, the UK watchdog for postal services, is to be disbanded, the majority of staff being made redundant. In just six days time, the work of postwatch is to be scaled-down and merged with energy watch and the National Consumer Council to form ‘Consumer Focus’.

Chair of Postwatch, Millie Banerjee, has written to Pat McFadden, the Minister responsible for the postal industry, giving her views on the challenging and turbulent times faced by the key players in the UK postal industry but was only cautiously optimistic that with the loss of regional representation, customers would be adequately supported and that there were likely to be “interesting and turbulent times ahead”.

Alongside the letter was a copy of Postwatch’s final publication, ‘Post, present and future’. The book gives a brief account of the postal scene as seen from Postwatch during its seven years of operation and some thoughts on the future and the challenges ahead. In her forward to the book, Millie listed the issues (the pension fund deficit, the cost of providing the universal postal service, declining mail volumes, poor industrial relations and the need for support for the post office network) that have come to dominate the postal sector.

She said she hoped that the forthcoming review of postal services would lead to speedy and positive action from the industry and the Government but from October 1st, championing the cause of postal customers would be shared among a number of organisations, notably Consumer Focus, Consumer Direct, Royal Mail, Post Office Limited and Postcomm.

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Deutsche Post World Net ranked No. 1 logistics company in climate protection

Posted by | Sep 25, 2008 | |

The Group is the only transport and logistics service provider to be included in the Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index. The index lists 67 companies from the Global 500 Index that have stood out for their exemplary contributions to climate protection.

The CDLI is compiled by the auditing company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on behalf of the CDP – a joint initiative of 385 globally active institutional investors with combined investment assets of more than USD 57 trillion.

The CDLI and the CDP’s annual report are based on a broad survey in which companies are asked about their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as well as their concrete CO2 reduction targets and climate protection strategies. Just fewer than 400 of the Global 500 companies took part in the 2008 survey. In addition to the CDLI inclusion, Deutsche Post World Net also had its listing in the FTSE4Good Index Series confirmed.

The company’s CO2 efficiency – including externally sourced transport services – is to be improved by an additional 30 percent by 2020. This means that CO2 emissions per letter posted, per tonne shipped and per square meter of used space are to decline by just under one-third compared with 2007.

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Senators: Government should block UPS-DHL deal

Posted by | Sep 25, 2008 | |

The Justice Department should block a proposed deal between package delivery companies UPS Inc. and DHL Express because it would violate antitrust laws and eliminate thousands of jobs, a pair of Democratic senators said Thursday.

UPS would provide air transport services for DHL’s North American business for 10 years under a contract the two companies are developing, UPS said in May. Currently, two independent airlines provide the services.

The contract, expected to be completed later this year, could result in USD 1 billion of additional annual revenue for UPS. Other terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed.

But the arrangement also could lead to the closure of a DHL air freight and sorting facility in Wilmington, Ohio, and eliminate 9,000 jobs, the senators’ letter said.

The deal “will substantially diminish, if not eliminate, the competition between DHL and UPS by rendering DHL a captive of UPS rather than an independent competitor,” Sens. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said in the letter. Kohl chairs a Senate antitrust subcommittee.

Norman Black, a spokesman for UPS, said the agreement is a “straight vendor contract” and not subject to antitrust oversight.

Ohio state officials have urged DHL to find other alternatives, but a DHL executive said earlier this month the company is struggling and losing USD 5 million a day. DHL is a unit of German postal service Deutsche Post AG.

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New Director at La Poste

Posted by | Sep 25, 2008 | |

Kurt Pierloot becomes the new Director of Mail & Parcels Operations at La Poste (Belgium). He will succeed Bernard Delvaux who had already announced his intention to stand down. Kurt Pierloot will be also assistant of the Steering committee.

The nomination of Kurt Pierloot was approved by the Board of directors, on the recomendation of Johnny Thijs, CEO of the Post office.

36-year-old Kurt Pierloot studied sales at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Solvay Business School). He joined La Poste in 2004, and was actively involved in the implementation of change in the Mail division, – in particular Georoute, and then of the direction of all the Mail activities in Brussels. Since 2006, he has been director of the Mail network and in charge of the management of all the activities relating to “Collections & Distribution” of the Post office.

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Korea Post to Radio-Track Mail, Parcels

Posted by | Sep 25, 2008 | |

The state-run Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced the development of a new RFID application that could “revolutionize’’ efficiency in the tracking of postal packages.

Currently, the tracking process relies on barcodes, but the use of RFID tags could greatly improve the speed and volume of the deliveries and lower labor costs by reducing manual piece handling, according to Heo Hong-seok, director of ETRI’s research team on postal logistics.

Under ETRI’s design, RFID tags are attached to the pallets attached to the packages, which then send radio signals to reading devices installed at the gates of mail centers.

The role of barcodes isn’t completely eliminated, however, as they will still be used to relay the information of each postal item to the electronic chips on the pallets.

ETRI was hired by the Korea Post, the country’s mail service monopoly, to develop RFID technologies for postal services. By the end of the year, Korea Post plans to license a company to install the RFID tags and readers at the country’s 25 mail centers nationwide, a process that is expected to be completed around August next year.

This would make Korea only the second country in the world, behind Denmark, to adopt RFID technology for real postal work.

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Hermes Transport Logistics targets Europe with road, air, ocean products

Posted by | Sep 24, 2008 | |

Hermes Logistics is expanding its freight transport business by re-branding it to target the European market and offering a broader product range, including road, air and ocean freight transportation.

The unit will be re-branded from Hermes Transportlogistik to Hermes Transport Logistics (HTL) during 2009, and will expand its road transportation fleet of swapbodies by adding up to 2,500 semi-trailers for international FTL services in Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Austria and the Benelux countries, the company announced.

Moreover, HTL will integrate Otto International Logistics, the freight forwarding business of parent company Otto Group, and will thus be able to offer air and ocean freight services to its customers as of March 2009. The HTL air and ocean business will be managed by Eckhardt Fechtner, currently in the same role for Otto International Logistics.

HTL will initially take over the international freight volumes of the Otto Group and other existing customers with trade flows from Asia. The company is already in discussions with major customers about combining transport flows for distribution through its network.

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