Tag: UK

CONSIGNIA said yesterday it was “more likely than not” to publish its annual report and accounts this week – the first and the last time it will do so under its unpopular brand. The group, formerly the Post Office, will simultaneously announce that it is to ditch its 16-month-old name and call the entire business The Royal Mail. “The chairman [Allan Leighton] has stated it’s unfortunate that when the name changed, it coincided with when things started to go wrong,” a spokesman confirmed yesterday. Last year’s re-branding exercise cost the company pounds 2m and gave it, according to chief executive John Roberts, a “modern, meaningful and entirely appropriate” name which “describes the full scope of the Post Office in a way that the words `post’ and `office’ cannot”.

Consignia, the renamed Post Office, is expected this week to set out a new programme to move back into profit, at the same time dropping its name in favour of calling itself Royal Mail. The move – in a statement expected on Thursday – will come as the group unveils losses for last year of about Pounds 1.1bn, in spite of better than expected operating losses thought to be Pounds 200m-Pounds 300m.