The Austrian government Tuesday evening agreed on amending the country’s postal law, which is necessary for the planned privatization of the state postal service, Oesterreichische Post AG, reported Austrian news agency APA. The change in the postal law is needed to improve the postal service’s competitiveness in a liberalized market. It is the first step toward privatization and a possible public offering, which is planned for spring 2006.
Read MoreTNT NV will equip its 4,500 operating vehicles with smoke filters, the company’s chief executive officer (CEO) Peter Bakker said on September 13, 2005. According to Bakker, it is crucial that TNT contributes to a clean environment. TNT, together with the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment (VROM), will conduct a study on the types of smoke filters, that are suitable for the company’s various diesel cars and vans. The study is to be completed by the middle of 2006, after which the subsidy from the ministry for the so-called retrofit will be utilised.
Read MoreThe government was told tonight to scrap its plans to end the Royal Mail’s monopoly on delivering letters next year, as the unions joined forces to oppose greater competition in the postal sector. Labour promised in its election manifesto to keep the post office in the public sector, but since then the trade and industry secretary, Alan Johnson, has floated the idea of a sell-off to workers, on the model of the retail company John Lewis, whose permanent staff are all partners in the business. The government was told tonight to scrap its plans to end the Royal Mail’s monopoly next year, as the unions joined forces to oppose greater competition in the postal sector. Tonight the TUC voted unanimously to oppose liberalising the postal market with Amicus’s Derek Simpson declaring “a last post for UK jobs” and Communication Workers Union general secretary Billy Hayes saying any partial sell-off would be “a privatisation in my book”.
Read MoreThe Japanese government on Tuesday decided to delay the start of postal service privatization by six months to give state-run Japan Post sufficient time to prepare its computer system. Under the new timetable, the privatization process will start in October 2007. The government will make no other major changes to its postal reform program plans. It will permit Japan Post to start international distribution services from April 2006 as planned. Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Heizo Takenaka, who is also in charge of postal privatization, said the changes were made solely for technical reasons. The government hopes for Japan Post to make utmost effort during the newly given preparatory period to prevent any computer system failures. But another half year can be added to the period if a major system glitch does occur.
Read MoreCourier giant DHL Worldwide has established a new division that will cater for cargo. DHL Danzas Air and Ocean will operate in Equatorial Africa with Kenya as its regional base. The freight services will operate separately from DHL Express, the courier wing of the company. “Some things will change but for the better,” says John Cockayne, Danzas area general manager. “With the new development, our customers will now benefit from a better choice of products and services.” Kenya was picked as the base for the region that covers Uganda, Tanzania, Senegal, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Zambia and Angola. Other countries that are also covered in the circuit include, Mauritius, Gabon, Reunion, Madagascar and the Congo. According to Mr Cockayne, Danzas will offer freight cargo services for air and sea and operate in 66 countries in sub-Saharan Africa where DHL Express has a presence.
Read MoreAn unattended delivery system for which Business Post now has the UK licence, called eBox, is on trial with several hundred customers.
Three sizes of eBox are available, taking deliveries or outbound shipments of up to 20kg. Business Post claims this makes the system suitable for the B2B sector as well as its HomeServe customers, such as service engineers and party planners. The company hopes by this means to reduce the problem of failed deliveries.
Recent acquisitions in the express parcel industry will help alleviate downward pressure on rates, according to Petar Cvetkovic, CEO of Target Express.
The wave of consolidation that happened a few months ago was for “negative reasons” as franchise operations such as Hellmann and NCN went bankrupt, Cvetkovic said. “They were offering low headline rates that were not sustainable.”
In the last few weeks, UPS has acquired Lynx and Amtrak bought Nightspeed to grow their respective networks – a positive development for the sector, he believed.
Top-line revenue was failing to match volume growth at Target in the year to date, admitted Cvetkovic. He was strongly critical of one company “on a suicide mission” which, without even looking at copy invoices, had told shippers that whatever they were paying, it would charge 20% less.
What is happening at An Post? Losses year after year, suspension of its direct-mail business for five weeks at Christmas and again at election time, repeated assertions that there is no need for postcodes, reduction in quality of service for single-piece mail, and non-payment of sustaining progress to their staff, writes Alex Pigot
Is the company a basket case or on a financial knife-edge?
The answer is emphatically no.
The company is sitting on a huge property portfolio last valued in their balance sheet in 1985 and has just sold its mobile phone top-up companies at a €70 million profit – so its balance sheet is financially solid and there’s cash in hand.
It is not, or at least it should not be, losing money and here’s why.
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