PostNL has continued its withdrawal from minor European postal markets with the sale of itsoperations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The addressed and unaddressed mail businesses in the two countries have been sold to IDMarketing, the Dutch postal operator announced. Their revenues and the sale proceeds were notdisclosed.
Under its strategy up to 2015, PostNL will concentrate its European mail activities onaddressed mail in the large countries where it has strong market positions, namely the UK, Germanyand Italy. At the beginning of 2010, the company already sold its Austrian mail business Redmail.
Then at the start of 2011 it disposed of its unaddressed mail businesses in Belgium and Italyto management and private equity company NPM Capital. The Belgian firm, De BelgischeDistributiedienst, had revenues of €100 million in 2009, while the Italian firm, RSM Italia,generated revenues of €38 million in 2009.
This sale was completed on April 8, 2011 and resulted in proceeds of €116 million and arelated book gain of €39 million, according to the company’s Q1 report. These proceeds will beincluded in the Q2 and half-year results to be announced on August 8, 2011.
PostNL made operating profits of €480 million on turnover of nearly €4.3 billion in 2010. Inthe Netherlands, where it is the national postal incumbent, it delivers about four billionaddressed items a year while it delivers a further 4.6 billion items annually in the UK, Germanyand Italy.
