Portugal today completed the full privatisation of postal operator CTT by selling the state’sremaining 31.5% stake in the company for €343 million.
The state holding agency Parpública announced that it had “successfully completed thereprivatisation procession” by selling 31.5% of CTT share capital in an accelerated bookbuildingprocess targeted at international investors. Shares were sold for €7.25, which is about 7% lowerthan yesterday’s closing price of €7.81 but well ahead of the average price so far thisyear.
The second privatisation stage, which follows last December’s IPO, leaves CTT as a 100%privately-owned company, with financial investors holding most of the shares along with workers whoown about 5%.
CTT was privatised in December 2013 when the Portuguese government sold nearly 70% of companyshares for €580 million to institutional investors and in an IPO. Under the IPO conditions, thegovernment committed itself to retaining the remaining stake until August 2014.
According to Parpública, Portugal has raised a total of €909.2 million from the full sale ofCTT, which was a condition of the EU’s massive €78 billion aid for the financially troubledcountry.
The final privatisation stage comes after CTT improved its operating profit by 15.6% to €54.9million and its net profit by 14% to €36 million in the first half of 2014. Half-year revenues grewby 1.7% to €356 million, and the EBIT margin improved to 15.7%.
In the mail business, CTT’s half-year volumes dropped by 7% but revenues declined by only 1.9%to €268 million (underlying -1.2%) due to a 4.4% average price increase.
Express and parcel revenues dropped by 1% to €62.7 million despite an 11.6% increase in volumes,largely due to the changing product mix with growth of cheaper B2C parcels that is pushing downaverage prices. Parcel volumes in Portugal increased by 17.6% to 6.7 million items.
Spanish subsidiary Tourline Express increased volumes by 5.4% to 6.5 million but its revenuesand profitability were negatively hit by restructuring measures as well as downward market pressureon prices. In March, CTT introduced an ‘Iberian’ express and parcels portfolio, offering customersthe same services in Portugal and Spain.
