Belgian Post will expand its services from 6 June following a damning report from consumer watchdog Test-Aankoop. The watchdog said a recent study revealed services offered by the postal authority have declined in recent years. In response, The Post has decided to keep 800 post offices open in future until 7pm one day a week. It also promised to reduce waiting times at its branches.
Read MorePost Danmark, the Danish post office, and CVC Capital, the UK buy-out group, has agreed to buy almost half of the Belgian post office in a transaction that marks a further step in the consolidation of Europe’s postal sector.
The duo will inject Euros 300m (Dollars 367m) into Belgian Post, valuing the group at Euros 640m. CVC bought 22 per cent of Post Danmark in the summer.
Separately, Deutsche Post, Europe’s largest post office, also underlined its ambitions to expand outside its domestic market by announcing the purchase of a majority stake in MailMerge, a Dutch mailing company.
Deutsche Post, which competed in the Belgian Post auction against a team comprising France’s La Poste and TPG of the Netherlands, last month agreed to buy UK logistics group Exel for Pounds 3.7bn (Dollars 6.7bn).
Read MoreDenmark’s national postal service, Post Danmark A/S, said Wednesday it and its minority shareholder CVC Capital Partners have invested EUR300 million (USD361 million) to buy a 49 percent stake in Belgium’s La Poste-De Post.
The Belgian state would retain the remaining 51 percent of the shares in La Poste-De Poste, the country’s postal service.
“The strategic partnership was part of the modernization of the Belgian postal service,” Post Danmark and CVC said in a joint statement.
Belgium also had been looking for a partner to help modernize its service. The government had said it intended to remain the majority shareholder in La Poste with the decision-making center remaining in Belgium.
La Poste-De Post is Belgium’s main postal service with some 35,000 employees.
Read MorePostal sector regulation and postal sector policy
Forces governing competition (Porter analysis, contestability of markets)
The universal postal operator: facts, figures, strategy
Competitor postal operators and effect of competition on market structure and market performance
Regulatory framework, liberalisation and access regulation
Market size of the postal sector and country information
Facts and figures for the national postal operator (US provider)
Competitor postal operators and market structure of the postal sector
Read MoreBelgian postal services company De Post/La Poste will deliver daily newspapers before 0730 h local time from 2006, the company said on April 12, 2005.
Currently, De Post/La Poste succeeds to deliver some 82 pct of all dailies, or 370,000 newspapers, before 0730 h and some 18 pct between 0900 h and 1430h, as it had agreed with Belgian newspaper publishers. Publishers complained that they lost customers due to the late delivery of the dailies by the post. On the other hand, late delivery has also damaged the image of the postal company.
The delivery was especially irregular in the Walloon region, southern Belgium, and in the rural areas.
In order to improve its newspaper delivery service De Post/La Poste will need to buy 457 new vans and employ 167 full-time personnel, which would cost a total 11 mln euro (USD14.3 mln). One third of those additional costs will be covered by the newspaper publishers and the government will provide a subsidy. De Post/La Poste distributes about two thirds of all morning newspapers in Belgium.
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