Tag: Germany

Deutsche Post has defended itself against accusations by trade union ver.di that separating letter sorting and delivery will lead to a drop in quality. Ver.di says that plans by Deutsche Post to use machines to automatically sort post by 2007, instead of postal workers doing it themselves will mean workers being forced to work part-time, which in turn would lead to a drop in quality. The union has also told Deutsche Post that its workers are disenchanted and working a mountain of overtime.

A privatization sale of shares in German mail carrier Deutsche Post was oversubscribed, and institutional investors scooped up all available stock at the market price, the federal government bank KfW said Tuesday in Frankfurt.
The sale reduces the overall government stake in Post, which owns the DHL parcels business and courier operations in several countries, to 56.9 per cent, with the rest traded on the German stock exchanges. Individual investors were excluded from the fast-track sale. Lead banks Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley have an option till the end of December to purchase additional stock at the same price to a total value of 150 million euros.

The state development bank Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau (KfW) said yesterday evening that it has sold 63.3 mln Deutsche Post World Net AG shares, or a 5.7 pct stake, for 15.79 eur/shr in a placement among institutional investors, managed by Deutsche Bank and and Morgan Stanley. KfW’s stake in Deutsche Post now falls to 36.9 pct, while the mail and logistic group’s freefloat rises to 43.10 pct from 37.4 pct previously. The greenshoe, or overallotment, option of 15 pct, will be exercised, the KfW said. The German government has a 20 pct holding in Deutsche Post.

Deutsche Post, the German postal service operator, has asked the German cartel office for an extension on the deadline by which it must respond to a warning it has received from the competition authorities. The company had asked for an extension until mid-December; as is usual in cases such as this, the extension has been granted. The dispute relates to restrictions on competition on the market for services for the preparation of mail.