Year: 2003

Deutsche Post World Net AG management board chairman Klaus Zumwinkel said he expects the German government will have completely privatised the company by 2007.

In an interview with AFX News, Zumwinkel said he considers it a ‘wise’ move to privatise the company in stages until 2007.

Asked when he expects the company to be fully privatised, he said the company now has a free float of around 32% and added: ‘I expect that by 2007, when the exclusive license expires, the free float would be 100%.’

Deutsche Post World Net AG expects to post higher profits next year and still sees full year 2003 EBITDA at €2.9 bln, management board chairman Klaus Zumwinkel said.

‘I expect next year that our earnings will be higher than this year. And with a dividend payout ratio of 25-30% based on higher earnings, then naturally we would have higher dividends,’ he told the VAP Foreign Correspondents Association last night. He said these estimates for higher dividends are independent of any proceeds from the planned IP0 of the company’s Postbank AG unit. Zumwinkel said his company plans to use the cash from the IPO to cut the debts of Deutsche Post as well as to expand and integrate its distribution centres in Europe.

Deutsche Post, the semi-privatised German postal authority, will put up to 49% of its banking services subsidiary Deutsche Postbank on the market next year, Deutsche Post chairman Klaus Zumwinkel told foreign reporters. Most of the shares will be placed with institutional investors, he said. “The stock flotation will happen next autumn,” he said. Deutsche Post in late September had announced the flotation would occur within 18 months, and probably in autumn 2004.