Tag: Europe

German Postbank records growth in a turbulent environment

Posted by | Nov 8, 2007 | |

Deutsche Postbank AG is continuing to grow. Despite intense competition in the retail banking sector and the turbulent capital market environment, Postbank increased its profit before tax for the first nine months by 24.6 pct year-on-year to EUR806 million. Adjusted for the positive impact of the disposal of the Bank’s insurance business and non-recurring effects, including the integration of BHW and the retail outlets, profit before tax increased by 8.4 pct to EUR752 million. The return on equity before taxes broke through the 20 pct barrier for the first time, increasing to 20.9 pct as of September 30, 2007 (previous year: 17.5 pct). The cost-income ratio improved to 65.5 pct (compared with 69.5 pct in the first nine months of the previous year), with the figure for the Company’s traditional banking business, i.e. excluding Transaction Banking, improving to 63.2 pct (previous year: 68.0 pct).

Postbank has only been affected by the crisis on the U.S. real estate market to a minor extent. The Bank has always applied its conservative investment principles when investing in structured credit portfolios. Postbank performed an intensive analysis of the soundness of these investments in the third quarter, on the basis of which it recognized valuation adjustments totaling EUR 61 million.

Postbank is reiterating its target of gaining around one million new customers in the current year, and remains confident that it will generate a return on equity before taxes of more than 20 pct and a cost-income ratio from traditional banking of less than 63 pct in 2008. The Bank’s aim of achieving a tier 1 capital ratio of 7.5 pct by 2009 remains unchanged.

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German Postbank jumps as Deutsche Post signals it may sell

Posted by | Nov 8, 2007 | |

Deutsche Postbank AG, Germany’s biggest consumer bank by clients, rose the most since its initial public offering after parent company Deutsche Post AG said it may look at the lender’s future next year.

The stock surged 5.60 euros, or 13 percent, to 59.54 euros in the biggest gain since the bank sold shares to the public in June 2004. The Bonn-based company’s market value rose to 8.12 billion euros ($11.9 billion).

Deutsche Post Chief Executive Officer Klaus Zumwinkel, answering a question at a Frankfurt analysts conference, said that after Germany’s mail market is liberalized in 2008, there will be “more time to think about” Postbank’s future. Deutsche Post is “the best owner” of the bank at the moment, Zumwinkel said, adding that the unit has attracted interest from a number of banks. He later reiterated that Postbank isn’t up for sale.

Postbank today also said third-quarter profit almost tripled as the sale of its insurance business offset a 61 million-euro writedown on U.S. subprime-related investments. Chief Financial Officer Marc Hess said the bank is confident that the amount is sufficient to cover risks from securities linked to loans for U.S. homebuyers with patchy credit histories.

Postbank stock has declined 23 percent this year, the second-worst performance on Germany’s benchmark DAX Index. Deutsche Post holds 50 percent plus 1 share of Postbank.

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UPS board names new Director

Posted by | Nov 8, 2007 | |

Rudy Markham, the recently retired Chief Financial Officer of Unilever, today was named to the Board of Directors of UPS.

Markham, 61, will serve on the Board until the next UPS annual shareowners’ meeting in May 2008, at which time he is expected to stand for election to a regular one-year term. After his appointment, Markham was named to the Audit Committee during a regularly scheduled Board meeting here.

In other business, the Board declared a regular quarterly dividend of USD 0.42 per share on all outstanding Class A and Class B shares. The dividend is payable Jan. 3, 2008, to shareholders of record on Nov. 19, 2007. UPS has either increased or maintained its dividend every year for more than three decades.

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Deutsche Post World Net: Business on track in 2007

Posted by | Nov 8, 2007 | |

Deutsche Post World Net completed the first nine months of the year according to plan. Once again, all divisions contributed to the 5.3 percent increase in revenue to 46.5 billion euros. At 2.5 billion euros, EBIT was slightly below last year’s level, which included non-recurring gains totaling 375 million euros. Excluding these non-recurring gains, the underlying EBIT rose about 10 percent. The strongest earnings growth was achieved by the LOGISTICS and EXPRESS divisions.

“The first nine months of the year were right on target,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Klaus Zumwinkel said at a press conference in Frankfurt. “We succeeded in our efforts to further increase the profitability of the EXPRESS business; and the LOGISTICS division has also made positive strides in terms of growth and new customers.” In addition to that, FINANCIAL SERVICES with Deutsche Postbank had a strong quarter and recorded a substantial increase in profit despite the turbulences in the financial markets.

All in all, Deutsche Post World Net now expects EBIT excluding non-recurring effects of around 3.7 billion euros for the full year of 2007, slightly more than the at least 3.6 billion euros forecast earlier. Therefore, the management board will propose to raise the dividend for 2007 by 20 percent to 90 cents per share from 75 cents per share.

As part of its capital markets program also presented today, Deutsche Post World Net plans to change the way it will report its business prospects in the future. Deutsche Post World Net will communicate specific earnings targets for the following year.For 2008, the Group expects EBIT to rise 14 percent to around 4.2 billion euros.

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Deutsche Post World Net presents capital markets program

Posted by | Nov 8, 2007 | |

Deutsche Post World Net today presented its “Roadmap to Value,” a far-reaching capital markets program to use the company’s excellent market position to generate more value for its shareholders. The program is aimed at making Deutsche Post World Net the most attractive investment in the logistics industry in addition to being the No. 1 choice for customers and employees.

The capital markets program “Roadmap to Value” is aimed at making the group the most attractive investment in the logistics industry.

With a comprehensive profit improvement program affecting all units and divisions, Deutsche Post World Net plans to generate 1 billion euros to underpin EBIT growth through 2009. In order to boost cash, the Group aims to reduce net working capital by 700 million euros and raise at least 1 billion euros in proceeds from the disposal of real-estate and other non-strategic assets over the next two years. The management board will also propose to raise the 2007 dividend by 20 percent to 90 cents per share compared with 75 cents per share for 2006. To help increase transparency, Deutsche Post World Net will unbundle its SERVICES division and in principle has committed itself to a stable reporting structure in the future.

In order to establish the value-based approach throughout the Group, Deutsche Post World Net will introduce a new performance metric. The metric, EBIT after Asset Charge, is aimed at motivating managers to generate more value from their day-to-day businesses. Chief Financial Officer John Allan: “The new metric will help us leverage our strengths and attack our weaknesses in order to raise returns for investors and to serve customers even better. We have highly motivated, best-in-class managers and employees around the globe and I am very confident that they are going to rise to this challenge.”

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