Posten is to sell its Postengirot bank to Swedish group Nordbanken, despite being forced to pull out of one prospective sale to another Swedish bank earlier this year when it found itself in trouble with the government’s competition authorities.
Read MoreJeremy Cope, group managing director for mail services at Consignia,
the state-owned company that runs Royal Mail, said last Friday the
number of first-class letters delivered the following day fell to
just 86.5% in the three months to June 30. Cope said the performance was unacceptable, but blamed it on railway
problems in April and May, and an unofficial dispute that involved
tens of thousands of workers
Three of Europe’s largest national postal services are stepping up their venture capital activities as they jostle to retain a leading role in a once plodding old industry. ‘New technologies are creating new business opportunities,’ says Martin Vial, chairman of France’s state-owned postal monopoly, La Poste. ‘If we don’t take part in this business, someone else will.’
Germany’s Deutsche Post AG, privatized last year and listed on the Frankfurt stock market, has already established its own 50 million euro corporate venture capital fund, Deutsche Post Ventures.
And the Netherland’s TPG — formerly known as TNT Post Group — which is also now a publicly traded company, last month committed 100 million euros to a corporate venture fund called LogiSpring, aimed at backing young technology companies in the logistics sector.
Postcomm is increasingly minded to award licences for a range of competitive postal services to those who come up with the most creative ideas and have the best chance to deliver their promises. In the case of a prolonged postal strike, this programme of change might be brought forward. There are three main contenders for a postal licence. They are: Deutsche Post, the former state-owned German postal service, which has stakes in the DHL and Securicor delivery services and has been mentioned as a buyer for Hays; TNT, which has been bought by the Dutch postal service; and Hays itself, the only UK-quoted company with a look-in. Hays already operates an upmarket delivery service for lawyers and accountants, and has made a convincing case that it could run highly competitive deliveries in major cities, including London, Manchester and Edinburgh. Moreover, if the regulator were to slice away one sector of the market, such as direct advertising, then an application from Hays or Deutsche Post, whose shares are now quoted, would find favour.
Read MoreThe German postal service Deutsche Post plans to
eliminate around 1,000 managerial posts in its courrier division and reduce
the number of regional depots by 40 percent, a spokesman said on Monday
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