Tag: Domestic

Secured Mail to Get GBP 1.6m Investment

Posted by | Aug 14, 2008 | |

UK postal operator Secured Mail, is set to expand after securing a GBP 1.6m investment from Manchester-based Aquarius Equity Partners.

Secured Mail, one of 22 licenced postal operators in the UK, operates a fleet of vehicles and has a well established client base. According to MD Mark Bigley, the investment will give Secured Mail a much-needed boost for growth and enable the business to become an even bigger player in the postal industry.

Steve Sealey at Aquarius said Secured Mail was just the business model it was looking for and that it was an ideal investment in an emerging market.

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Postcomm to Amend Postal Operator Licences

Posted by | Aug 13, 2008 | |

With Postwatch soon to be absorbed into a larger multi-consumer watchdog known as the National Consumer Council on 30th September, Postcomm is making adjustments to its paperwork which includes existing postal operator licences.

To prepare for the abolition of Postwatch and the new complaint handling standards, Postcomm needs to make relevant licence modifications to postal operators’ licences to reflect the transfer of functions from Postwatch to the new NCC and the new complaint handling standards.

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Mergers and acquisitions on domestic delivery market (Romania)

Posted by | Aug 13, 2008 | |

The beginning of this year brought an avalanche of mergers and acquisitions on the domestic delivery market in Romania. Founders of Cargus sold the company to the international player DHL, Pegasus was taken over by GeoPost and Yurtici Cargo company Trans Courier Service was bought by UPS, whereas TCE Logistics and Curiero merged.

Fan Courier is the only delivery company of the top three which did not announce its selling intention.

For this year, Fan Courier plans to make investments worth 20 million euros. “We’ve conceived ever since last year a pretty bold investments plan. We will construct a new headquarters that will endorse our growth. The land alone cost us 2.5 million euros and the investments in the building alone will reach about 8.5 million euros. To them adds the transporting strip that will cost other 4 million euros. Then there will be the equipment of all our couriers with PDAs (personal digital assistant), which entails other 2 million euros. However, when we will finalize the investments, our company might really compete from a technical and quality viewpoint with any company from Romania and from abroad,” say the owners of the company.

Related to a prospective sell of the company, there have been many offers but none went beyond the principle stage.

The first quarter of the year, the company reported a turnover worth 9.8 million euros, over the same period of the previous year.

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Royal Mail USO needs funding says Lawson

Posted by | Aug 12, 2008 | |

Steve Lawson, editor for Hellmail the postal industry news site said it was ‘highly probable’ that Royal Mail would have to consider reducing the frequency of its deliveries or cutting back on some of its services if fuel costs continue to remain high and more business was lost to rivals.

“Royal Mail is providing a very expensive service whilst continuing to lose market share” he said.

“Raising stamp prices to meet increased costs isn’t something that Royal Mail is able to do at will either, and often there’s a real lag between pricing and operating costs which puts Royal Mail at a real disadvantage. Present stamp prices are fixed until 2010 but that doesn’t take into account the sharp increase in diesel prices.”

“Royal Mail wants to provide the best service it can, as indeed do postal workers themselves, but the business is under huge pressure from Postcomm to reduce its operating costs. The six day a week service is an expensive one to provide, as is the universal service which guarantees a minimum collection and delivery service even to areas that are incredibly costly to provide. Sending a postman into the back of beyond to deliver a 34p letter isn’t exactly profitable. Add declining mail volume as well as business lost to rivals, and it becomes fairly obvious that maintaining such a high level of service is an enormous task. I doubt its sustainable unless stamp pricing becomes more flexible. It seems highly probable that some key part of its service will go.”

“There needs to be a fixed funding for the USO if Royal Mail is to be able to compete on fair terms but no decision has been made on who should pay for it in the longer term. Postcomm has already said that it isn’t keen to share that cost between operators as that would effectively undo its own efforts to help stimulate competition. Postwatch too, suggested some contribution from all postal operators but to date, it remains unresolved and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Royal Mail reports an even bigger loss on the USO this year. Its not an issue we can ignore.”

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DHL wins GBP 3.6 million British Home Stores contract (UK)

Posted by | Aug 12, 2008 | |

DHL Exel Supply Chain announced a new GBP 3.6 million (4.5 million euro) contract over three years to provide logistics e-fulfilment warehousing services for Bhs throughout the UK. This contract is an addition to DHL’s existing business with the major high street retailer and will involve handling over 150,000 customer orders each year.

DHL is to deliver a range of services to Bhs including: processing customer orders; processing customer returns; value added services and customer helpdesk services. The company will handle a variety of products for Bhs including clothing, gifts, home and lighting products

This additional contract was awarded to DHL after a competitive tender process. DHL’s capability will support growth of the online ordering business, reduce operating costs and improve service levels.

Bhs currently also uses DHL Global Forwarding for outbound freight logistics services and DHL Express for 24 and 48 hour parcel delivery services.

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