German logistics company Fiege has abandoned plans to expand its domestic mail delivery operations, Handelsblatt newspaper reported, citing a Fiege spokesman. Fiege, one of Deutsche Post AG’s larger rivals, said it will instead concentrate on the delivery of newspapers, Handelsblatt added.
Read MoreDeutsche Post AG confirmed a press report that it will open up to 300 small branches in the rural areas of Germany from September this year onwards. With the move, Deutsche Post wants to test to what extent it can offer financially viable basic postal services even after it loses its stamp monopoly in late 2007, a spokesman for the company said, confirming an earlier report in Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
Read MoreCome September 2005, Deutsche Post will be testing a new retail outlet format at some 300 locations. Working together with retail partners, the Company will set up outlets carrying a streamlined basic postal product line. In doing so, Deutsche Post is putting a sales format to the test which, with an eye to the exclusive license set to expire at the end of 2007, should be financially viable and at the same time adapted to significantly changed customer behavior. If Deutsche Post customers respond favorably, the intention is to extend the pilot project starting in the spring of 2006. Basic services such as postage stamps, parcel-post stamps and Packsets will be offered, but not special services with low demand (e.g. COD, issuing warehoused items) and banking transactions.
Read MoreGermany’s finance minister Hans Eichel said the government may sell its remaining shares in Deutsche Post AG and Deutsche Telekom AG to help reduce its budget deficit, according to an interview in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. Asked how he could plug the country’s budget hole, Eichel said: ‘Without pinning myself down, we could sell our stakes in (Deutsche) Telekom and (Deutsche) Post. Of course we will take into consideration share-price developments, that is why we would again park the shares with the (state-owned) KfW bank,’ he told the newspaper. Eichel added ‘we could also sell our stakes in airports which we have not yet sold’.
Read MoreThe German government has not yet decided when to sell its remaining stakes in Deutsche Telekom AG and Deutsche Post World Net AG, sources said. But when the time comes, it will likely transfer its shares to state-owned KfW Bankengruppe, the sources told dpa-AFX news agency. The last such transaction was in January, when KfW bought a 12.7 pct stake in Deutsche Post World Net AG from the government for 1.7 bln eur, raising its total stake to 48.8 pct. Financial Times Deutschland earlier today cited sources as saying Germany’s Finance Minister Hans Eichel plans to sell the government’s remaining stakes in Deutsche Post and Deutsche Telekom to help cover the budget deficit.
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