France’s La Poste has unveiled plans to restructure into a limited company in 2010 and to float aminority holding on the stock exchange in 2011 in order to raise €2.5 – €3.5 billion for growth,
including acquisitions, as Europe’s postal market is fully liberalised.But the French state will remain majority shareholder and it is “premature” to comment on thesize of shareholding to be floated, group president Jean-Paul Bailly told a news conference inParis yesterday. French media had previously referred to a possible IPO involving a 10-20% stake.
Bailly told the news conference that the legal restructuring into a limited company might becompleted by January 2010 which could enable a capital increase in January 2011. “We need €2.5 –€3.5 billion to finance our development,” French media cited him as saying.
The plans to restructure the French national postal operator from an autonomous public sectororganisation into a limited company in order to enable a capital increase would be formallypresented to the government in the next few days, La Poste announced.
La Poste said it needed to continue investing in modernisation of all its business activitiesand, in contrast to its largely privatised competitors, currently did not have the financial meansto realise its “ambitious” growth strategy.
Key strategic aims included:
– To complete the mail product portfolio in France and get into position to buy or developalternative mail operators in Europe
– To complete the European express business (Germany, Spain and Italy in particular) and tomake several targeted acquisitions outside Europe
– To continue modernisation of its postal network
La Poste underlined that its public service commitments would be maintained, there would beno changes to employee status, and it would remain a public company majority owned by the state.
Executives were due to meet with union officials today to exchange views on the project. Thefive postal unions have so far criticised the restructuring plan and warned of large-scale joblosses if it goes ahead. They are due to meet on September 2 to discuss possible protest actions.
