Deutsche Post continues its service offensive
1,000 sales points for letter and parcel stamps will be set up all over Germany this year.
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Deutsche Postbank CEO calls for speedy sale of bank
Deutsche Postbank AG’s Chief Executive Wolfgang Klein said he wants the German retail bank to be sold by the end of this year, or even sooner, according to an interview in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
The newspaper also cited sources close to parent company Deutsche Post World Net AG as saying an investment bank, likely to be Morgan Stanley, will soon be commissioned to find a buyer for the company.
Klein said the bank should be sold to a company that can create the most value in the long term through lifting synergies and boosting market share to 20 pct, according to the newspaper.
‘I know who my favourite partner is,’ Klein said, adding: ‘But first of all I’m not the one selling, and second, I would weaken my position if I said who it is.’ Deutsche Post holds a 50 pct plus one share stake in Postbank.
Read MoreLa Poste CEO says eyes Germany's PIN Group
La Poste is considering taking over insolvent German postal firm PIN Group, Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper quoted exectives at the French company as saying.
“It goes without saying that we are looking at it,” La Poste Chairman Jean-Paul Bailly was quoted as saying in a preview of the paper’s Tuesday edition.
Raymond Redding, head of La Poste’s mail division, was quoted as saying: “Parts of PIN are viable and therefore interesting. Takeover possibilities in the mail business are very rare.”
La Poste planned to reach a decision by the end of this month, the paper added.
La Poste, which is owned by the French government, did not have any immediate comment on Monday when contacted by Reuters.
PIN ran into financial difficulties after German publisher Axel Springer, which owns 64 percent of PIN, gave up on a rescue for the business in December after the German government agreed to a minimum wage for postal workers.
This came ahead of liberalisation of the sector and amid pressure from dominant German mail company Deutsche Post.
Read MoreDeutsche Post to transfer more outlets to retail partners
Deutsche Post World Net AG plans to have more of its own outlets operated by retail partners such as supermarkets and bakeries, a company spokesman said, confirming an earlier report.
Luebecker Nachrichten earlier reported Deutsche Post will sell by 2011 about 700 of its 800 own outlets.
Most of the outlets affected are small branch offices with one or two workers, the spokesman said, adding the move will not lead to job cuts.
Deutsche Post last year already transferred about 200 of its outlets to partners such as retail stores and lottery ticket sellers.
Read MoreDPD expands express services to international destinations
German parcels carrier DPD announced today it will expand its year-old domestic express services to international destinations over the coming months following a successful of for the new product.
DPD will start to offer international express between Germany and the Benelux states in May, and also offer domestic express within the three countries. Further countries neighbouring Germany will be added later in the year.
“The express services with delivery by 08:30, 10:00, 12:00 or 18:00 that we re-positioned in 2007 have made a superb start,” commented CEO Arnold Schroven. “We have gained 15,000 new express customers and volumes have increased by 60%,” he disclosed. Schroven said he expected double-digit growth rates for express shipments again this year.
DPD had achieved a very high delivery quality rate of 99.6% for express items, based on its highly-efficient transportation network with direct traffic between nearly all German depots, Schroven emphasised. Quality would play an important role in the future, and new express services would be intensively tested before being introduced, he added.
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