France’s postal company, La Poste, bought 50 peccent of the stock in Masterlink, the polish company which specialises in courier solutions, tracking services, and shipping tools, in Poland, Scandinavia and Baltic States. Its strategic investor so far was Sweden’s Posten AB.
Read MoreDeutsche Post said it welcomes the approval by the Bundesrat to amend the Postal Act (Postgesetz). This means that from 2003 onwards, only letters and addressed catalogues weighing more than 100 grams will be open to competition.
Read MoreDeutsche Post AG will not be allowed to make a compromise solution to the repayment of 572 million euros in what the European Union Commission has judged to be illegal subsidies, people close to the German postal-services and logistics giant said on Tuesday.
These people cited top-ranking Commission officials. EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti ordered the repayment in mid-June, when he ruled that Deutsche Post has been using receipts from letter post, over which it has a monopoly, to cross subsidize cut-throat pricing in areas that have been opened up to competition. According to Monti, the German government’s decision to secure Deutsche Post a monopoly that can be used in this way is tantamount to the provision of illegal subsidies.
The recent $2.5 billion bid by Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s state-owned railway, for Stinnes, the country’s top logistics group, was a shot in the arm for Europe’s beleaguered rail freight industry as it struggles to stem a steady loss of traffic to rival transport modes.
The acquisition will triple the volume of Deutsche Bahn’s cargo and logistics traffic, making its freight operations almost as large as its passenger business with around $11 billion in annual revenues.
This is a milestone for Europe’s rail freight which has been an also-ran to the higher profile and more politically sensitive passenger sector.
Palletline has launched a daily express service to Germany following an alliance with Cologne-based International Logistics Network, which has 90 depots and 12 regional hubs across the country. The two-day service is designed for consignments of one to three pallets.
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