Tag: France

Swiss Post acquires Global Business Services Plus

Posted by | Jul 8, 2008 | |

Swiss Post has acquired Global Business Services Plus, which specializes in digital document management and has offices in France, Germany and Slovakia. Swiss Post is thus enhancing its offering in the field of in-house mail. In addition to internal physical mail services, customers are increasingly coming to expect that documents can be entered electronically, processed and digitally archived.

By acquiring Global Business Services Plus (GBS+), based in Paris, Swiss Post is reinforcing and completing its offering in the field of document solutions in Germany and France. It is thus an attractive partner for international companies which also look for an offering of this type from a single source. Corporate clients are increasingly seeking to not only outsource their in-house postal services. They also want to have a partner handle the digitization of documents, the integration of these digitized documents into their in-house electronic processes and the electronic archiving of these documents. One important customer segment for the newly acquired company GBS+ in France is banks, for which the company will handle cheque processing. Up to now, Swiss Post has been represented in this market with large units in the UK, the USA and Switzerland. The newly acquired company generated just under CHF 60 million (USD 58 million) in sales last year with a workforce of 1,000 and operates in the rapidly growing business process outsourcing market. In addition to France and Germany, GBS+ relies on its production facility in Bratislava (Slovakia).

Read More

Paris braves the storms and ties itself to a Poste

Posted by | Jul 8, 2008 | |

Rothschild, the French bank, has been hired to lead La Poste to a partial privatisation, which could see it valued at about EUR 10bn (USD 15.7bn) in a flotation within two years. Of course that depends on at least two things – first a change in legislation, which in turn will require support from a sometimes surprisingly hesitant ruling UMP party.

Privatising GdF, for example, was far from a done deal, in spite of support from then party leader and presidential hopeful, Nicolas Sarkozy. Imagine how much more reluctant many deputies may be if they believe a privatisation could threaten services in their local constituencies that go well beyond delivering letters, and stretch even to baguettes and newspapers.

Second, the unions – already feeling marginalised by President Sarkozy’s divide-and-rule tactics – are up in arms about the possibility that the legislative process could be launched early next year. The president’s quip this weekend that France had changed so much that no one would notice if there was a strike, was an almost direct challenge to unions to prove him wrong.

Nonetheless, the government seems determined and the process is being marketed as the only possible response to the arrival of full postal liberalisation in 2011. With the formidable Deutsche Post gearing up for an assault on the French postal market, La Poste has little choice, according to Jean-Paul Bailly, chief executive. The French group has been successfully restructured, is profitable and and has resolved its pension issues. But it still needs the financial flexibility that a flotation would bring to open up new markets and revive its 12,500 post offices to face competition more effectively, he argues.

That may be true, but every silver lining has a cloud and that may be in the timing. Why the government believes this is the right moment to raise the question of a postal sell-off remains a mystery. Though the unions have been powerless in the face of Mr Sarkozy’s relentless reform agenda, the public mood remains uncertain. Rising energy costs seem to have obscured the benefits of EDF’s and GdF’s sell-offs and there is considerable public discontent over constrained consumer spending power.

Read More

La Poste to give consumer credit with Societe Generale

Posted by | Jul 8, 2008 | |

The banking arm of the French postal service, La Banque Postale, is to provide consumer credit by the end of next year in partnership with Societe Generale, French daily Les Echos reported on Tuesday.

The proposal was reported as the French government mulls a partial privatisation of the French postal service.

The daily said the joint-venture, which involves SocGen unit Franfinance, is to be approved by La Banque Postale’s board on Thursday. One option being considered would see La Poste contribute to the venture in paper and Societe Generale in cash.

Read More

Postal chief sees freight returning to rail and sea (Australia)

Posted by | Jul 7, 2008 | |

The international freight industry will face increasing pressure to cut back on flights and revert to sea and rail deliveries because of environmental concerns, the head of Australia Post predicts.
Australia Post’s managing director, Graeme John, who will be chairman of an annual meeting this week in Queensland of nine of the world’s biggest postal groups, said the problem of global warming would have an increasing influence on the way the global postal industry is run.
Mr John said growth in international freight from consumer goods such as electronics had been managed on a “just in time” basis, with air travel preferred to other forms of transport because of its speed advantage. But that approach was no longer viable.
The postal groups meeting this week – Australia, the United States, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Spain, France and Britain – are members of the Kahala Post Group, a consortium created five years ago to help them compete with private freight companies.
Mr John instigated the consortium because he “wanted to do something about the dominance of the DHLs and the FedExs and UPSs in the international parcel network”, as did other former monopoly postal groups.
The Kahala group – named after a resort the members stayed at during their founding meeting in Hawaii – conceded they could not compete with the private companies on speed, so instead focused on reliability of delivery.
But to guarantee that reliability the Kahala members had to upgrade their tracking systems.
It also required the creation of a “delivery calculator” – a database of eight billion postcodes that allows a customer to walk into any postal outlet, list their destination and be told a precise window during which a parcel would be delivered.
While the private couriers already offered that certainty, and faster delivery, the Kahala members undercut their prices by 40 per cent to 50 per cent.
As well as pressure to shift towards less environmentally-damaging modes of transport, Mr John said a worsening economic environment could prompt a trend to slower “deferred” delivery services.
The Kahala partnership is also moving beyond postage, with Australia Post, China Post and the US Postal Service preparing to launch a group-owned money transfer service to compete against Western Union.

Read More

France declines comment on La Poste IPO target

Posted by | Jul 7, 2008 | |

The French government declined on Monday 7th July to comment on a report that a possible partial privatisation of La Poste could raise 2 to 3 billion euros (USD 4.7 billion) to help prepare one of the bastions of state ownership for competition.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Chief of Staff lifted a taboo on changing the ownership of the postal service, one of the country’s biggest employers with 280,000 staff, on Sunday by saying the idea of a stock market listing “deserves interest”.
The move would form part of France’s efforts to prepare itself for the liberalisation of the European postal market by 2011.
“We have no comment because La Poste has not put forward a proposal yet,” a finance ministry spokesman said.
“A flotation is one of the options being studied,” a spokeswoman for La Poste said, but said a proposal had not been made formal.
The tentative flotation plan, first reported in Le Monde last week, has angered unions already involved in sporadic strikes to defend pension rights and the 35-hour working week.
The Sud-PTT postal union said it would be “the end of the public postal service” and that a similar step taken by France Telecom had merely saddled it with massive debts.
French daily Echos said on Monday that La Poste, which generated sales of 20.8 billion euros in 2007, was looking to sell 20 percent of its share capital in a possible flotation that would value it at more than 10 billion euros.
Sarkozy’s Chief of Staff Claude Gueant warned on French radio on Sunday of the consequences of failing to respond.
“If we do nothing, very clearly it will be the German post or the Dutch post that will distribute mail in France,” he said.
France’s post office derives 56 percent of its revenues from mail services and 23 percent from its low-fee banking subsidiary La Banque Postale.
Any move towards privatisation would require changing the legal status of the French postal service, a delicate political operation that would involve turning it into a public limited company or “societe anonyme” instead of a civil service branch.
The government says any changes would not threaten La Poste’s public service status.

Read More

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

P&P Poll

Loading

What's the future of the postal USO?

Thank you for voting
You have already voted on this poll!
Please select an option!



View ResultsHide Results

Post & Parcel Magazine


Post & Parcel Magazine is our print publication, released 3 times a year. Packed with original content and thought-provoking features, Post & Parcel Magazine is a must-read for those who want the inside track on the industry.

Subscribe to the Magazine

 

Pin It on Pinterest