Post Austria, which is poised for flotation next spring, plans to invest some 500 million eurosin expansion in the European parcels and logistics markets, according to local media reports. Most
of the investment will go on acquisitions in the logistics field to enable the state post office todiversify into new markets. The media reports were confirmed by Post Austria. The AustrianGovernment aims to float a minority stake of 25 per cent in Post Austria by May 2006, and a further24 per cent at a later date. The IPO could raise about 250 million euros.Under the new logistics expansion strategy, Post Austria would cooperate with, and possiblylater buy, up to 20 successful European logistics firms, each of which already had turnover in thethree-digit million euro range, the reports said. The objective was to turn Post Austria from “themarket leader in Austria into a specialist operator in a pan-European niche business”. In theparcels sector, acquisitions would be made in central and south-east Europe, including in the CzechRepublic within the next few weeks. Post Austria also aims to increase its existing turnover in themail and parcels sectors by about 100 million euros by 2008 through new products and services.
The new strategy comes after Post Austria sold its 30 per cent stake in DPD Austria on September1 in order to concentrate on building up its own B2B parcel service instead. The post office soldthe DPD holding, which it had acquired in 1997, back to the three Austrian shareholders Lagermax,Schachinger and Gebrüder Weiss for an undisclosed sum. The other shareholder in DPD Austria isGeoPost (25.5 per cent). Post Austria joined the DPD system after heavy losses in its businessparcel services. But the post office has invested about 45 million euros in setting up its ownparcels infrastructure, including seven large distribution centres and 21 regional depots. The newVienna South parcels centre was officially opened on September 8.
The Austrian government has meanwhile agreed on a postal liberalisation deal, several newspapersreported. Vice-chancellor Hubert Gorbach was quoted as saying that an independent postal regulatorwould be installed in 2008, and the Post Austria monopoly would fall in January 2009 at theearliest and “in line with the EU postal directive”.
