Czech postal service operator Èeská pošta (ÈP) plans to operate its own pharmacies in the future to better use the network of post offices.
ÈP CEO Karel Kratina said the company was interested in over-the-counter drugs. He added that CP is also considering the distribution of books as a way to better use its fleet of vehicles.
Read MoreWith the postal service market set to open up, Mediaservis is positioning itself to wrap up a bigger chunk of the mail delivery market. And more than just junk mail is at stake.
The Czech postal services market is the most open and developed within the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region, yet rivals of traditional public operators are awaiting full liberalization of the European Union postal market, says Jaroslav Aujezdský, CEO of Mediaservis, an alternative competitor to domestic state-run post office Èeská pošta (ÈP).
Mediaservis is closely monitoring the liberalization process and will be prepared to meet all the conditions when the market is fully liberalized, and be able to provide delivery of mail under 50 grams, or under Kè 18 (EUR 0.65) in the Czech Republic, Aujezdský said.
Currently, Mediaservis has about a 20 percent market share of approximately 1 billion addressed mail items including letters, direct mail, newspapers and magazines sent every year. “We want to enter the segment of delivery of letters under 50 grams, which represents about 65 percent of all the letters that we cannot deliver at the moment although we are capable of doing it,” Aujezdský said. The 65 percent represents mainly the business-to-business (B2B) and the business-to-customer (B2C) market. Some 90 percent of European mail is from businesses, and this is where most new rivals are likely to target new lower-priced services, according to the European
Commission (EC).
Mediaservis was established in 1999 with the aim of providing a morning delivery service mainly for publishing houses. At that time the only operator ÈP offered late morning delivery of periodicals on weekdays, and no service on Saturdays.
Read MoreThe Czech government is preparing the remaining major state-owned companies for privatization but may keep a controlling stake in some of them, the weekly Euro reported today.
The Czech post office services provider Ceska Posta will likely be divided into several units, some of which will be up for grabs in a privatization, while others will remain under state control, the weekly said, without citing sources.
Prague airport, Letiste Praha, whose value is estimated at 100 bln crowns, may be split between the Prague municipality, which will acquire a 34 pct stake, and the finance ministry, which will keep the rest.
However, the 66 pct stake should later be sold as the Czech transportation ministry may require half of the proceeds for the state fund of transportation infrastructure, Euro reports, citing unnamed sources.
Brewery Budejovicky Budvar may offer its shares in an initial public offering, after it is transformed into a joint stock company, according to the minister of agriculture Petr Gandalovic.
1 GBP = 40.7925 CZK
Read MoreDHL opened a Kc150 million reloading centre in Plzen, western Bohemia today, Jiri Stojar, DHL Express chief executive for the Czech Republic, told CTK.
“We will create a backbone network of ten main distribution terminals worth almost Kc1 billion in the Czech Republic in three years,” he added.
DHL leased a hall on an area of 21,000 square metres for 15 years in the CTPark Borska pole industrial park together with PPL CZ. Both companies are controlled by Deutsche Post.
The Plzen facility employs more than 100 staff. “We have enough capacity for a growth which reaches 35 percent year-on-year,” said PPL chief executive Jiri Hondl.
DHL covers 46 percent of the express air transport market as the country’s number one and, together with PPL, 26 percent of the parcel service, trailing the Czech Post Office (Ceska posta).
DHL has 285,000 staff in 220 countries and territories of the world. In the Czech Republic, it employs 3,700 staff, while PPL CZ has 480 staff and 600 partners in the country
Read MoreCzech state-run postal services provider Ceska posta (CP), slated for privatization, reported a 2006 pre-tax profit of CZK 331 mln, down more than 67% year-on-year (y/y), mainly on expenses linked to its transformation into a joint-stock company, the company announced in a statement Tuesday.
“Extraordinary operations amounting to CZK 666.9 mln reduced CP’s pre-tax profit, but at the same time they helped us correct inaccuracies in past accounting and will enable more precise accounting in the future,” Deputy Finance Director Ladislav Musil said in a press release.
The company’s operating revenues rose 2% y/y.
CP’s transformation from a state public enterprise to a joint-stock company is a first step toward privatization. The process began last year and is scheduled to be completed in 2008.
If the several one-offs linked to this transformation are not counted in, the postal services provider would have generated a profit exceeding CZK 1 bln, CP stated.
CP will probably be privatized through the entry of a strategic partner, CP has previously said.
In 2006, CP delivered 900 mln letters and 26 mln parcels.
It employs 38,000 people and operates 3,400 branches nationwide.
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