Customers of troubled German postal operator PIN Group are reportedly switching their business backto Deutsche Post in response to its financial problems. Several PIN Group subsidiaries have
formally declared insolvency.German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau cited a DP spokesman as saying that various PINcustomers, including public authorities and large companies, had returned to using Deutsche Post,which would gain additional double-digit million euro revenues as a result. This was not confirmedby PIN Group.
About 10 of the 91 regional PIN Group operating subsidiaries, with a total of some 1,190employees, have meanwhile declared insolvency. The PIN Group, now under the management of financialexpert Horst Piepenburg, has some 9,000 employees.
Piepenburg was cited in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as saying the insolvencies werenecessary to retain the chance of rescuing the group as a whole. He aims to review the financialsituation of all the group’s subsidiaries by mid-January. Piepenburg took over from Günter Thielshortly before Christmas following the latter’s resignation as a result of the failed MBOnegotations with majority owner Axel Springer AG.
Meanwhile, the German mail market was formally liberalised with effect from January 1, 2008,with the expiry of Deutsche Post’s exclusive licence to carry letters weighing up to 50g. At thesame time, the regulation obliging postal operators to pay sorting and delivery staff a minimumwage of EUR 8 – EUR 9.80 entered force.
