France’s postal company, La Poste, bought 50 peccent of the stock in Masterlink, the polish company which specialises in courier solutions, tracking services, and shipping tools, in Poland, Scandinavia and Baltic States. Its strategic investor so far was Sweden’s Posten AB.
Read MoreMartin Vial, Chairman of La Poste Group, and Lennart Grabe, President and CEO of Swedish postal operator, Posten AB, today cemented the strategic agreement signed in the fall of 2001 for the joint development of parcel operations in the Nordic, East European and Baltic markets.
The agreements finalized to date underline the postal operators’ shared determination to further strengthen parcel activities through win-win partnerships in promising markets with high growth potential ; partnerships that may also be extended to other operators.
Yesterday a new range of products was presented at a board meeting at La Poste, the French national postal services group. “Tempost” is aimed exclusively at the group’s major clients, the industrial parcel delivery firms, which generate about 30 per cent of La Poste’s total turnover from parcel delivery (10bn euros).
La Poste is promising 95 per cent service quality, and has undertaken to pay compensation if it falls below this target. A discount system is also under consideration. There have been objections to the plan from the SUD-PTT union, which says it will create a two-tier, unfair system in which industrial parcel delivery will be given priority at the expense of ordinary users.
The French post office (La Poste) last week unveiled plans to shut five of its eight sorting offices in Paris by April 2005 in order to increase productivity. This initiative will involve replacing the offices in question with one mechanised centre with new machines capable of sorting greater volumes of mail.
Read MoreThe French post office is planning to launch another two insurance products. The first of these novelties provides insurance against accidents in the home – mishaps which, according to La Poste, account for 75 per cent of the accidents which occur each year in France. The second product, which is due to be launched next year, is a policy designed to insure its holders against the cost of dependence in old age.
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