Tag: Europe

UK Mail heralds VAT breakthrough

Posted by | Mar 21, 2007 | |

UK Mail, the postal services arm of the Business Post Group, has secured an important breakthough that it is confident will soon see the launch of a brand new “Agent for Access” service. This will enable companies in the financial services and charity sectors to benefit from a downstream access postal service which they have previously been unable to enjoy. This unprecedented move extends postal choice to a whole new market of mailers and marks an important development for the deregulated mail sector.

Many of the largest mail users are businesses that are not VAT registered – such as banks, insurance companies and charities. Any VAT they are charged on services they use, has to be taken as a cost. This is down to the fact that they can’t charge VAT themselves when supplying their customers.

“Agent for Access” is the service solution tailored specifically to suit these businesses’ needs.

Up until now VAT rules have put this sector at an automatic disadvantage. Current legislation states that all postal operators (bar Royal Mail) must apply VAT to their postal charges, leaving non-VAT businesses with limited options. For them, enjoying UK Mail’s full range of service benefits has not always come with the same overall cost savings that UK Mail offers other mailers.

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Royal Mail union demands 27% pay rise and shorter working hours

Posted by | Mar 21, 2007 | |

Royal Mail is facing union demands for a 27 per cent pay rise that the post group claims will cost an extra GBP1 billion a year, The Times has learnt.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has asked for the minimum payment of its members to be brought into line with average basic pay in the UK. The main postal union is also demanding that its members work a 35-hour week, rather than the existing 40 hours.

The CWU says that postal workers, who earn a minimum of GBP311 per week, should be able to benefit from investment and improvements expected in the business over the next few years.

In a letter to Royal Mail, Dave Ward, the CWU deputy general secretary, said: “Given the proposed scale of change within the company, we require a pay settlement that achieves UK average basic pay for OPGs [outdoor postal grades]. This was set at GBP395 per week in 2006 and we are undertaking research to establish whether the figure has subsequently increased.”

The CWU says that the rise could be phased in, although Royal Mail said that the union had called for the increase to be immediate. Mr Ward said: “The business has a five-year plan for success and that must include raising the value and status of postal workers’ jobs in that timescale.”

The postal organisation, which has a pension deficit of GBP6.6 billion and recently reported a plunge in its profits, says that it cannot afford such a rise. A spokesman said: “This pay claim will cost us GBP1 billion at a time when we are facing full competition and the cost of servicing our pension deficit is pushing our profits down 86 per cent.” The group maintains that it already pays better rates than its competitors.

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Global-Z releases Italian address-correction data-processing service

Posted by | Mar 21, 2007 | |

Global-Z International, a bureau specializing in the data processing of international mailing addresses for global direct marketers, has enhanced its Italy data-processing service — including the most current Italian postal codes — after the Italian postal authority, Poste Italiane, changed its postal code system.

Bennington, VT-based Global-Z said its Italy data-processing service is designed to help mailers update their Italian address files.

As many global postal authorities have done, Poste Italiane is enhancing its old postal-code system in pursuit of efficiency improvements. With this enhancement, which will continue through the year, the old Italy postal codes will not be available on Poste Italiane’s legacy processing and necessitate the manual processing of this mail. This postal-code update will benefit mailers using Poste Italiane with greater precision and speed delivering mail with updated postal codes.

Global-Z said that with the new postal-code system in place, mail with old, wrong or insufficient addresses would be processed as mail that has a non-existent address. As a result, the updated postal codes help assure delivery. This update includes Italian regions, provinces, municipalities and 8,500 neighborhoods, including all the streets of the 27 largest towns.

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Nightfreight drives back into black

Posted by | Mar 21, 2007 | |

Specialist delivery business Nightfreight has forged back into the black – posting pretax profits of pounds 4.1 million for the year to November 30, compared to the previous year’s loss of pounds 6.2 million. The company yesterday said it had improved turnover by 6.83 per cent, up by pounds 8.4 million to pounds 131.9 million, while operating profits rose 250 per cent, up by pounds 3.1 million to pounds 4.38 million.

Nightfreight, which started life at Willenhall in 1984 and still remains headquartered there, said the improvements in its performance reflected the benefits of an ongoing investment programme in both customer service and operational developments. Steve Allen, chief executive, said: “Throughout 2006, the company has made good progress improving its financial performance and commencing its transition to becoming a logistics and solutions business, offering customers new integrated services that will meet their changing requirements.”

Nightfreight is currently owned by Royal Bank of Scotland.

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Exel acquisition lifts Deutsche Post figures

Posted by | Mar 21, 2007 | |

Deutsche Post said it boosted the sea freight business of its subsidiary DHL last year, both through the acquisition of Exel and through organic growth, writes Katrin Berkenkopf in Cologne.

‘We notched significantly increased volumes from existing business and with new customers,’ the group said.

With a volume of 2.4m teu, DHL should be the number one sea freight forwarder globally in terms of transport volume, although competitor Kuehne+Nagel is considerably larger when it comes to turnover.

The 2.4m teu contrasts with only half of that volume seen a year earlier, which demonstrates the leap ahead that the acquisition of Exel meant for DHL’s Global Forwarding business.

The growth in revenue is clearly lagging behind the volume increase, however. Sea freight turnover grew by 41% to EUR2.66bn (USD3.5bn). Deutsche Post pointed out that a dip in freight rates on high-volume routes had a negative impact on finances.

Kuehne+Nagel last week reported a seaborne transport volume of 2.3m teu and turnover of SFr8.3bn (USD6.8bn). Overall, the logistics division of Deutsche Post which includes ocean and air freight, supply chain business and land-based freight business recorded a turnover of EUR22.9bn, up from EUR9.9bn.

Acquisitions, first of all that of Exel, account for EUR11.6bn of the increase. Earnings before interest and taxes grew from EUR346m to EUR762m. Deutsche Post chief executive Klaus Zumwinkel reiterated his forecast of operating profits in logistics reaching EUR1.2bn by 2009. For the current year, he expects a rise of 15%.

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