Author: Archive

Royal Mail puts pressure on Postcomm

Posted by | Feb 27, 2007 | |

Royal Mail(UK). through an interview with the Financial Times and then issuing a press release, is trying to use the media to pressure the postal regulator Postcomm to loosen the regulatory regime. This would allow Royal Mail to increase substantially the price of stamps to its domestic and small business customers and to reduce prices to large business mailers.

Postwatch, the watchdog for postal services, is confident that the regulator will not allow stamp prices to increase by 6 pence – far above the rate of inflation.

Postwatch, believes the regulator will cut through the rhetoric and instead will analyse objectively the hard numbers that must support any formal request, should Royal Mail make one.

Howard Webber, Chief Executive of Postwatch, commenting on today’s events said, “The current generous price control, which allowed first class stamps to increase from 30 pence to 36 pence between April 2006 and March 2010, has been in place for less than a year. Royal Mail has already taken advantage of the flexibility offered to increase prices by 2 pence in April 2006 and 2007.

“This four year deal was at the time welcomed by Royal Mail as providing the certainty it needed to plan for the future. But now they want more.

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Polish Post to invest EUR 120m in new sorting centres

Posted by | Feb 27, 2007 | |

Poczta Polska, the Polish postal operator, is to build new sorting centres in four cities at a cost of PLN (Polish zlotych) 480 million (EUR 122.7 million), according to reports in the Polish media.

The centres, part of a programme to improve infrastructure and the quality of services, are to be constructed in Wroclaw, Katowice, Gdansk and Bydgoszcz, said the Polish News Bulletin. Each of them is to cost PLN 120 million (EUR 30.68 million), the newspaper says.

The post, which recently lost one of its biggest customers, TP (Polish Telecom), to emerging rival Krakow-based InPost and suffered a wave of industrial action, nevertheless recorded a profit of PLN 300 million (EUR 76.7 million) in 2006 on 7% year-on-year revenue growth.

It awarded over 100,000 postal workers pay rises worth a total PLN 60 million (EUR 15.34 million) to resolve a dispute that threatened to blow up into a full-out nationwide strike.

Polish Post’s director general, Zbigniew Niezgoda, is quoted as saying liberalisation of the below-50g, PLN 2.5 billion (EUR 638 million) mail market by 2009 – desired by the European Commission – “should not be a problem”.

Privatisation of Poczta Polska is not expected to take place before 2011, the newspaper reports.

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Royal Mail a global also-ran, claims rival

Posted by | Feb 27, 2007 | |

Royal Mail has left it too late to become an international business, the chief executive of its main rival said yesterday.

Peter Bakker, head of TNT, the Dutch postal business, said that it would be difficult for Royal Mail to catch up after years of expansion by other operators such as his own company, Fed-Ex and DHL.

Royal Mail has one international business, a European parcels operation, while its rivals are active across large parts of the world.

TNT said yesterday that it would accelerate its moves into developing markets such as China, India and Brazil. The group, which now deals with one billion items of UK mail a year, believes that it can provide infrastructure and mail services as the postal market develops on the back of strong industrial growth. Last year, international businesses contributed 75 per cent of TNT’s EUR10 billion (GBP6.7 billion) revenues.

Royal Mail hit back, saying there was not as much competition in comparable countries as there was in the UK, where the market was fully liberalised.

Mr Bakker also gave warning that TNT could quickly double its UK market share if Royal Mail lost its VAT exemption. The European Commission is investigating whether it is permissible for incumbent mail operators to be exempted from VAT by their governments when rivals have to charge the tax.

Mr Bakker said that TNT would be able to secure more lucrative contracts if it were able to compete on level terms with Royal Mail.

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Spain's MRW grows revenues 9%

Posted by | Feb 27, 2007 | |

Spanish express company MRW said its revenues grew to EUR 564 million in 2006, over 9% higher than the EUR 517 million it posted in 2005.

MRW also announced it has continued its network expansion by opening a new branch in Seville.

The new outlet, in Bollulos de la Mitación, is the 32nd MRW has opened in Spain since the beginning of last year – at a rate of over one a fortnight – taking its total number of franchises in Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra to 768.

MRW now has 34 in Seville province, 12 of them in the city. Earlier this month, it announced new branches in Murcia and Toledo. It also has 39 logistics distribution platforms totalling around 90,000 sqm, 10,500 staff, 5,000 vehicles and three aircraft.

The company is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and has used the occasion to upgrade its corporate image.

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TNT set to put orange-clad postmen on streets

Posted by | Feb 27, 2007 | |

TNT is ready to roll out a door-to-door letter delivery system in cities across the UK, bringing staff in an orange uniform shoulder to shoulder with postmen and women dressed in the familiar blue and red.

TNT of the Netherlands said it would take a final decision over the next couple of months when it had gained final data from its trials in Glasgow and Manchester but was now “hopeful” that it would proceed with its plans for the biggest ever challenge to Royal Mail’s position.

Reporting an 11.3% increase in worldwide operating profits and earnings before tax and interest of EUR355m (GBP238m), TNT chief executive Peter Bakker said Britain was a key market showing healthy growth and the company was now distributing more than 1bn pieces of mail a year here. Royal Mail customers to have switched to TNT include BT, which recently signed a contract worth up to GBP90m.

Items handled by TNT – apart from those involved in the trials – are collected before being handed over to the Royal Mail for the “last mile” delivery. But that will change when TNT starts offering a complete next-day service in many locations.

TNT wants to roll out its door-to-door operation to large cities in Britain but is unlikely to offer next-day delivery to more remote rural areas, critics argue. But the Dutch company said yesterday that private companies were also working at a disadvantage, particularly from having to add VAT to services, unlike Royal Mail. The European commission is looking at this issue in Britain, Germany and Sweden.

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Radio keeps tabs on the mail

Posted by | Feb 27, 2007 | |

Australia Post has strictly mandated delivery timetables but, until last year, the way letters and parcels passed through most of its vast network was all but invisible.

Until the middle of 2006 the organisation relied on a manual mail monitoring system that could only reveal when a letter went into the postal network and when it popped out at its destination.
If there was a problem along the way that delayed the letter, Australia Post had no way of quickly identifying the bottleneck and rectifying the problem so it could meet a requirement that 94 per cent of standard letters be delivered on time.

To solve the problem the postal service turned to radio frequency identification (RFID), a technology it had worked with on international mail runs, Australia Post network services performance manager Alan Smith says.

Early last year Australia Post decided to end its long-running mail monitoring agreement with KPMG and signed a five-year contract with RFID monitoring specialist Research International.

The agreement led to the installation of RFID equipment at national mail distribution centres, allowing Australia Post to track thousands of letters tagged with tiny radio frequency chips. Smith says Australia Post initially installed RFID readers at 53 sites and has since added another 17, including five that were brought online this month.

Australia Post also has 2000 businesses and consumers participating in the mail monitoring program and each month the group inserts an estimated 15,000 RFID tags into letters, which are then put into the postal system to assess whether mail is delivered on time.

The RFID readers in Australia Post facilities throughout the country provide a detailed picture of how an item moves through the postal service and pinpoints a bottleneck if the item is delayed.

Smith says Australia Post can identify and fix causes of delays anywhere in the postal network in two to three days, instead of the six to eight weeks it used to take.

Aside from speeding the rectification of faults, RFID has freed up Australia Post staff to focus on other tasks.

Smith says the results of the program are so impressive that overseas mail carriers, including New Zealand Post and Britain’s Royal Mail are interesting in emulating aspects of the RFID network and set-up strategy.

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Geodis – financial statements 2006

Posted by | Feb 27, 2007 | |

– Revenue up 5.3%
– Operating profit up 25%
– Attributable profit up 50%
– Dividend up 11%
– New ambitions for the period to 2009
The Board of Directors of Geodis, chaired by Pierre Blayau, met on 26 February to approve the 2006 financial statements.

(a) Adjusted in accordance with IAS 8
(b) Like-for-like growth (at constant exchange rates, based on a comparable scope of consolidation and income statement presentation): 4.6%

A robust performance in France combined with sustained growth in Germany, Eastern Europe and Asia fuelled a 5.3% increase in consolidated revenue in 2006. This was the third consecutive year of around 5% revenue growth.

Operating profit rose 24.6% to €106.4 million, representing 2.8% of revenue. Operating profit in France includes the reclassification in operating expense of the €2.0 million standard minimum corporate income tax, as well as the reimbursement of €7.9 million in VAT paid on motorway tolls in prior years.

The Europe region (excluding France) came close to break-even with an operating loss of just €0.5 million, reflecting the ongoing recovery in Italy where operating losses were limited to €3.6 million, and the improved situation in the United Kingdom.

Results in Spain were adversely affected by the problems encountered by the groupage network and by the €4.8 million in impairment charges recognized on intangible assets.

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Western Union extends its relationship with La Banque Postale

Posted by | Feb 27, 2007 | |

The Western Union Company announced that it has renewed its relationship with La Banque Postale. The new agreement will enable Western Union to pursue a successful business strategy as it continues to create rich opportunities by strengthening the Western Union brand and its relationships with Agents.
With approximately 29 million customers, La Banque Postale operates one of France’s largest financial services networks. They have a bank license that allows them to offer a wide range of financial services. In October 2006, Western Union and La Banque Postale celebrated 10 years of working together. The agreement with La Banque Postale promises to increase Western Union’s reach throughout France. Presently, Western Union and its agents operate more than 3,000 locations across France, and customers carry out millions of Western Union Money Transfers annually with La Banque Postale.
Both organizations also manage a successful joint venture “La Societe Financiere de Paiements” (SFdP) which, along with its correspondents, manages a network of 46 branches located in France’s major cities. This joint venture was created in 2003 to complement the Western Union service offering within La Banque Postale and endeavor to meet the wide-ranging needs of customers — primarily immigrants who have left home to seek a better life in France and who continue to send money home to the families they have left behind. These remittances provide support for everyday necessities like education, food and health.

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