Tag: UK

Shares in Business Post fell 14 per cent yesterday after the mail delivery group issued its fourth profit warning within 12 months after failing to improve margins at its core business. The UK’s fourth-largest mail operator said full-year pre-tax profit would be about Pounds 9m after margins at itsparcel services business – which accounts for 70 per cent of turnover – had failed to pick up. Guy Buswell, the new chief executive, said the company had lost “quite a few customers” over the past 12 months through lack of service and a sales force motivated to sell only to bigger customers.

The finance director of Business Post Group PLC said it will take a year before there is a ‘significant improvement’ in the mail company’s struggling parcel business. In an interview with AFX News, Peter Fitzwilliam said the parcel business would focus on targeting small and medium-sized companies, rather than larger companies, which he said was a better use of its resources. ‘Its more efficient to have a wider spread of customers rather than a (smaller number) of bigger ones,’ he said. ‘We need to re-balance the sales mix and target SMEs. This will create operational improvements.’ Fitzwilliam was speaking after Business Post issued its second full-year profit warning in three months, saying an expected improvement in profit margins at its Parcel Services business had not materialised. It said pretax profits for the current year to March 31 would be only 9 mln stg.