State-owned express carrier Parcelforce Worldwide is in crisis talks with its unions after taking a £201m hit in exceptional half year losses, compounded by a decade of losses and a £50m writedown 18 months ago.
Read MoreCalls for Consignia to sell Parcelforce, its struggling package delivery arm, are increasing as losses continue to mount. “The business would be better off outside Consignia, because mail, parcels and retailing are separate businesses, ” said Paul Jackson, MD of parcels industry consultant Triangle. “They could consider a management buyout scheme.” Jackson said: “Problems are mounting in the rest of Consignia’s business, with the opening up of the letters market to competition and industrial relations problems. Consignia’s management won’t have time to sort Parcelforce’s problems out. The government does not need to be in the parcels business – or retailing for that matter. If Parcelforce wasn’t owned by Consignia, it would be a market leader today.”
Read MoreConsignia today announced a half year operating loss of £100 million before exceptional items, compared to a restated loss of £20 million for the same period a year ago. After accounting for exceptional items, the post-tax loss for the half year is £281 million, compared with a £113 million loss (restated) for the previous half year.
Read MoreThere can’t be many plcs less than a year old, that can boast brand
equity dating back hundreds of years.
Consignia, formerly the Post Office Group, became a publicly listed
company in March, inheriting the august brands of Royal Mail, the Post
Office and Parcelforce Worldwide.
But with its new independence comes a newly deregulated and competitive
market, and all, including Consignia, agree it’s going to be tough out
there. The Postal Services Act last year stripped the Post Office of
its monopoly on collecting and delivering post (though post costing
less than £1 is still covered). In June, three other postal operators
got the go-ahead from regulator PostComm to tackle Consignia’s
business.
World of Shopping, the global shopping site developed by Parcelforce Worldwide, in partnership with Global eBusiness Solutions specialists, Retail Futures, last night picked up the Internet Commerce Award at the World Mail Awards in London
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