Tag: Poczta Polska

MPs from the Sejm’s infrastructure and treasury committees gave a green light to transforming the Poczta Polska (PP) Polish postal service into a company, owned solely by the State Treasury. The draft resolution stipulates that the Sejm agrees to this move but reserves the right to keep its option to sell PP’s shares in the future. “This is not a privatisation. We are giving PP a chance to change its legal status so that it will be able to compete with other companies on the market,” said Malgorzata Ostrowska of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD). The Deputy Minister of Treasury, Wojciech Halka, also thinks that turning PP into a joint stock company will allow it to conduct necessary restructuring that will better prepare PP for competing on the liberalised postal services market.

Poczta Polska, the state post operator, is to apply to the Treasury within the next few months to be commercialised, before it starts preparations for a stock market listing that could happen in 2006-2007, the company said last week. Poczta, which expects its sales to exceed ZL6 billion this year, is one of Poland’s largest employers with a headcount of over 100,000. This number, said deputy director general Czeslaw Kowalski, is to be reduced through outplacement and early retirement. Poczta also aims to cut its fixed costs by 10-15 percent this year, as well as introduce new products. It will reduce the delivery time for money transfers to same or next day depending on the type of service, against the current delivery time of two days. Poczta delivers some ZL30 billion annually in 250 million transfers. To regain position on the parcel delivery market, where Poczta has lost ground to private operators, the company will introduce a new product, a local parcel.

Polish Post (PP) will construct four logistics and sorting centers in 2005, which will be added to the existing two centers operating in Warsaw and Poznañ.
“The investments will consume zl.1 billion,” said Andrzej Pacholski, operating director of postal operations at PP. In order to further boost its competitiveness the company will also offer financial services later this year. “By the end of January we will choose three to four investment funds which will get exclusive cooperation rights for a definite period of time,” said Mariusz Wnuk, director of financial and market services at PP.

Poczta Polska, (PP) Polish Post Office will go public in 2006. “Making the company public will be highly profitable, however, it will not happen next year. We’re thinking it might happen in 2006,” said PP director general, Tadeusz Bartkowiak on Thursday. He added that the work to transform the firm into a joint stock company was in progress.