Tag: Germany

Deutsche Post, Europe’s largest postal service, has come under fire from lawyers and investors after the group prematurely issued analysts with operating figures ahead of its quarterly report next Monday.

A spokesperson for the German financial supervisory authority said that it would wait until the official figures are published on Monday, after reports in FT Deutschland, before they decided whether to take action against the company.

Lawyers told FT Deutschland, the Financial Times sister paper, that they believed the distribution of actual figures to analysts was a breach of German law.

“At a first glance what Deutsche Post has done is illegal. Market sensitive information has to be reported because it is information that can move the markets,” Klaus Rotter, an investment specialist said.

German post operator Deutsche Post plans to halve to 500 the number of small branches it previously marked for closure, company’s spokesman Juergen Blohm said.

Previously, Deutsche Post intended to reduce the number of its branches, operated either by the company or through agencies, to 12,000 from currently 13,000. After protests from the affected parties, however, the company reconsidered and halved the number of the planned closures.

The Association of Post Agencies, Pagd, accused Deutsche Post of working with the 7,500 post agencies in an authoritarian manner, saying that it has reduced the wages of part-time employees in the post agencies to 300 euro (USD390), below the negotiated monthly sum, despite the registered 10 pct turnover growth.

Furthermore, Pagd’s chairman Torsten Modery said Deutsche Post has provided misleading information regarding the number of its customers to the agencies operating post offices, and thus compromised their economic efficiency evaluations.

German Finance Minister Hans Eichel said it has not yet been decided when the government will sell Deutsche Post pension obligations.

‘Currently, there are no talks with investors,’ he told dpa-AFX news agency in an interview.

Eichel had said in November that the government hopes to raise 5.5 bln eur from the planned sale of some pension fund receivables of former post-office monopoly Deutsche Post’s successor companies.

The pension fund sales involve transfers by Deutsche Post World Net AG and Deutsche Telekom AG, which are the successor companies to Deutsche Post.

Eichel also said possible future transfers of shares in Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Post World Net to KfW Bankengruppe are not dependent on capital markets developments.

At least two competitors of Deutsche Post World Net AG want to have more access to the mail sorting, consolidating and delivery business, according to Financial Times Deutschland, citing Post rival GLS.

GLS chief executive Rico Back said he is confident GLS would be able to force Deutsche Post to open up its monopoly in this area.

Meanwhile Consultancy firm DID Vedat Deniz, which specialises in postal monopoly issues, told the same newspaper it is acting on behalf of a second interested party which is also seeking access to the logistics company.