Tag: Germany

SAS Cargo hires Knudsen as vice president

Posted by | Feb 19, 2007 | |

Nile Pries Knudsen, director of freight for DHL since 2001, has been hired by SAS Cargo as vice president and head of global sales, the company announced earlier this month. Knudsen, 46, will lead SAS Cargo’s 160-member sales staff, which has representatives in North America, Europe and Asia. His past experience includes positions at A.P. Moller Maersk Group, Hangartner, J.F. Hildebrand and DHL Express. During that time, Knudsen held leading positions, including watching over DHL’s land-based transportation network in Europe.

Knudsen said he joins the company as it continues efforts to increase cargo capacity through agreements with other airline-cargo companies.

“The sales side has big ambitions,” he stated.

The move comes nine months after SAS Cargo refocused its energies toward sales by removing air-cargo handling operations from its direct control. The company outsourced those duties to Total Airport Services at its Newark, N.J., branch and created a new subsidiary for its Scandinavian market. SAS Cargo owns 100 percent of the new subsidiary, Sprint Air Cargo Handling Group AB.

SAS Cargo also has inked several agreements in recent years that allow it to access other airlines’ cargo inventory. The latest move came last July when SAS Group made a deal with Spanair.

Read More

Schenker expands night express services

Posted by | Feb 16, 2007 | |

Leading German freight transport company Schenker has expanded its specialised night express services. For standard parcel services, the Deutsche Bahn subsidiary cooperates with UPS.

Schenker Germany announced that its “NightPlus” service has grown to some 2.1 million consignments per year. Goods are collected in late afternoon or early evening and delivered by 08:00 the following workday morning, or even by 06:00 or 07:00 if required by customers.

The specialist express service is targeted at customers with urgent items such as spare parts that have to be delivered before the start of the working day. Automotive workshops and repair centres are a key customer group.

Read More

Outlook Deutsche Post FY EBIT little changed; sales growth offset by margin fall

Posted by | Feb 16, 2007 | |

Deutsche Post World Net AG will this month report full year EBIT little changed from 2005, with higher sales offset by margin erosion in its mail activities and restucturing costs at its DHL Express business, analysts said.

DPWN has officially scheduled its earnings release for March 20, but market watchers expect the German logistics giant to release the figures either next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Analysts polled by AFX News expect EBIT to range between 3.680-3.934 mln eur compared to last year’s 3.755 bln, with sales rising sharply to 59.8-63.8 bln from 44.6 bln.

The net profit consensus lies at 1.978 bln eur, up 13.6 pct, with the bottom line declining to 730 mln from 1.02 bln in the fourth quarter.

The latter reflects shrinking margins at DPWN’s mail segment due to increased competition in Germany and Europe as a whole, analysts said.

One-off costs occurring from its ongoing revamp at DHL Express are also set to weigh, one analyst added.

While the company is targeting a complete turnaround of DHL Express unit by 2009, many market watchers expect a more speedy recovery.

Nicholas Ward at Deutsche Bank expects restructuring to be completed in 2008, assuming 100 mln eur of extraordinary costs in 2007.

BHF Banks’s Nils Machemehl added that anything later than that would not be ‘acceptable at an internal level’.

But not only the DHL unit will need to step up in 2007, analysts said, citing the company’s ability to fight off competition as one of its main risk exposures.

Goldman Sachs said a tough liberalisation in the mail segment by the German government will be a key risk to the company’s future success, with no offsetting drivers currently in place.

A more moderate liberalisation in line with European norms would, however, trigger an upward revision of forecasts at the US brokerage.

In addition, market watchers expect implementation costs arising from the 2005 acquisition of Exel to level off next year, with DPWN’s logistics division able to start pocketing synergy benefits.

Analysts are also looking to a potential further reduction in the stake owned by state development bank Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau (KfW), which currently holds 30.6 pct but has signalled it could sell up to 25.9 pct.

Deutsche Bank said an entry into DPWN by private equity firms should be seen in a positive light with the business offering ‘good quality brand, assets and networks’.

BHF Bank expects DPWN to raise its dividend to 0.80 eur per share from 0.70 eur in the year-earlier period.

BHF added that Deutsche Post could also pay a special dividend of 0.85 eur per share if a dispute with the EU over state aid payments made between 1994-1998 is settled in its favour.

Read More

IQ Letternet to grow and rival Deutsche Post

Posted by | Feb 16, 2007 | |

German postal service provider IQ Letternet reportedly intends to dispatch 100 million letters this year and establish itself as one of the top three rivals to German national postal services provider Deutsche Post. Rainer Pliska, head of IQ Letternet, has said that the company is aiming to attain turnover of 500m euros by 2010 and a 5 per cent share of the market. The intention is to achieve the rise in turnover through organic and strategic growth.

In order to assure cooperation with 53 regional delivery services, Mr Pliska intends to set up a joint-stock company under the name of IQ in which partners will be able to invest, and to float the company on the stock exchange in 2011 at the earliest. In order to protect regional partners, Deutsche Post will not be considered as a potential investment partner.

Read More

Germany pushes its EU neighbors to end monopoly on letters

Posted by | Feb 7, 2007 | |

In the early evening at Deutsche Post’s main sorting center in Frankfurt, 4.5 million letters pass through human hands before racing across conveyor belts and under electronic eyes that can read even barely legible handwriting to divine where the letter should go. By midnight, bright yellow plastic bins of letters land on trucks for overnight sprints across Europe.
Each mailing is a slice of the roughly euro 4 billion, or USD5.2 billion, that Deutsche Post takes in from its letter business each year — a third of its German revenues. Opening this business to competition would put as much of a fifth of that business at risk.
But when the German government ends Deutsche Post’s monopoly on simple letter delivery next Jan. 1, in the name of better service and lower prices for consumers, the postal service will have to open its sorting and delivery system to other players — in much the same way that former telecommunications and transportation monopolies have had to adjust.
For its part, Deutsche Post is fighting back, putting competitors on notice that access to its postal sorting and distribution network will come only if they meet the company’s specifications for humble letters — “no bills on beer coasters,” a spokesman, Hans Jürgen Thomeczek, said. And since this will be a business, and not a public utility, newcomers will have to pay for the privilege.

Read More

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

P&P Poll

Loading

Have you noticed a decrease of non-EU inbound parcel volumes since the implementation of the new €3 charge?

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