Tag: Europe

Business Post steps up pressure on Royal Mail

Posted by | Jul 10, 2007 | |

Business Post, the postal services company, said its turnover had risen 13 per cent in the first quarter of 2007 compared with the same period last year.

In an interim management statement ahead of Tuesday’s annual general meeting, the company said its struggling parcels business was “making progress in an increasingly competitive market” while other parts of the business were performing strongly.

Business Post’s parcels contract with Federal Express, worth about GBP 20m in revenue and GBP 2m in operating profit, was terminated on April 30. If the revenues from this contract were excluded, the company’s underlying revenue increase for the first quarter would have been 18 per cent, the company said.

More than 10 per cent of the 20bn items posted each year in the UK are now handled by private sector contractors. Business Post handles more than one in 20 letters posted in the UK.

Business Post said it had managed to minimize the disruption caused by the Royal Mail strike at the end of June.

The company said when it announced its full year results in May that it had more than doubled revenues of its UK Mail operation in the year to March 31 2007 to GBP 90.3m, following the full opening of the letters market to competition at the start of last year.

In May, the company said its operating profit from UK Mail also doubled from GBP 3.2m to GBP 6.4m after investing a further GBP 4m to increase sorting capacity.

The group’s turnover was GBP 325.6m in the year to March 31, compared with GBP 278.2m the previous year, and profit before tax was GBP 9.8m compared with GBP 4.7m the previous year.

Tuesday’s statement contained no information on the company’s expected profits or dividends.

Business Post now has more than 400 customers, including Prudential, which the company won in June, the BBC and the Department for Work and Pensions.

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TNT Post wins multi-year distribution contract with Dutch Sanoma unit

Posted by | Jul 10, 2007 | |

TNT NV’s Dutch postal unit TNT Post has signed a multi-year distribution contract with Sanoma Uitgevers, a Dutch unit of Sanoma WSOY, one of the largest consumer magazine publishers in Europe.

Financial details were not disclosed.

The contract calls for the delivery of 73 mln magazines, 800,000 parcels and 17 mln postal items per year, according to the statement.

A TNT post subsidiary will also be involved in the application of an electronic payment system for customers.

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Malta: Competition in postal services sector uncertain

Posted by | Jul 10, 2007 | |

As the European Parliament prepares to vote on a draft directive for the full market opening of postal services this month, the Malta Communications Authority (MCA) told MaltaMedia that “It is still early to tell if anyone would be interested in setting up shop following liberalization” in Malta.

Recently that Transport Committee said that the deadline for remaining postal service monopolies in European Union (EU) member states, such as Maltapost in Malta, should expire by 31st December 2010, two years later than the 1st January 2009 deadline proposed by the European Commission.

The two-year postponement was a compromise to get the proposal through.

Some Members of the European Parliament had argued that in parts of the EU, more time is needed to create a stable regulatory framework for ensuring that post continues to be delivered EU-wide at an affordable cost, and to enable postal operators to adapt to new market conditions.

Full market opening should mean that national operators will no longer have a monopoly on mail below the maximum weight of 50 grams, known as the reserved area.

In this light, a spokesperson for the MCA told MaltaMedia that Malta is not “among the ‘laggards’, having rationalised its postal operation some time back.” While noting that “it is debatable whether an additional two year ‘closed-shop’ will bring about added efficiency” to post services operations, the spokesperson added that in the other sector that it regulates, it was the actual market opening that served to spur the relative operators to adapt to open market conditions.

In fact, a new operator recently entered the market providing full territorial coverage within the universal service area, specifically seeing to the delivery of summons in line with the Local Tribunals Regulations. This service already falls outside the area currently reserved for Maltapost.

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Greece sells 20 percent stake in postal bank

Posted by | Jul 10, 2007 | |

The government raised more than euro 500 million (USD 683 million) from the sale of a 20 percent stake in the Greek Postal Savings Bank as part of its 2007 privatization program, Finance Minister George Alogoskoufis said Tuesday.

With this sale, and euro 1.1 billion (USD 1.5 billion) raised following the sale of a 10.7 percent stake in Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE) last month, the government is close to reaching its euro 1.7 billion (USD 2.32 billion) privatization revenue target for the year.

The privatization revenues will be used to pay down Greece’s huge public debt, estimated at 104 percent of gross domestic product, or more than euro 180 billion (USD 246 billion).

“The successful disposal of the 20 percent of the stake in Greek Postal Savings bank is an important step in the government’s privatization program,” Alogoskoufis said.

Tuesday’s sale lowered the government’s stake in the lender to 45 percent.

Shares of the Greek Postal Savings Bank ended 1.7 percent higher Tuesday at euro 18.30 (USD 25.01) at the Athens Stock Exchange.

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Germany's Sparkassen in talks with Pin Group for possible in-branch mail service

Posted by | Jul 10, 2007 | |

Germany’s Sparkassen savings banks are currently in talks with Luxembourg-based carrier service Pin AG over a possible cooperation which may include offering postal services at Sparkassen branches, reported Spiegel magazine, citing a spokesman for the DSGV, the German savings bank association.

At this point it is still open as to what form the agreement could take, but the report speculated that the DSGV might be looking into offering a service to compete against rival Deutsche Postbank AG and its parent company Deutsche Post AG, which offers customers postal services at its branches.

The report said it was also not clear whether Sparkasse or Pin AG employees would operate such a service.

Earlier this week, German media house Axel Springer AG bought a controlling share in Pin AG, raising its holding in the mail service provider to 71.6 pct from 23.5 pct.

Pin AG chief executive Guenter Thiel has said that his company plans to have a branch network as large as that of Deutsche Post’s by mid-2008.

The company handles about 2.3 mln mailings a day and expects to more than double its annual sales this year to 350 mln eur.

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