Postal workers in Portugal will go on a one-day national strike on June 7 in protest atgovernment plans to privatise the country’s postal operator CTT Correios de Portugal later this
year.The strike will be “against the privatisation of CTT” and “in defence of a quality publicservice”, union leader Henrique Santos announced in the northern town of Coimbra where the SNTCTpostal workers union is protesting against the closure of a regional mail distribution centre.
Separately, the Portuguese minister for communications, public works and transport, SergioMonteiro, confirmed last week that the government has received “expressions of interest” frompotential investors “for parts of the business and for everything”. The government plans to decideby the summer how and when it will privatise CTT, he added.
The minister was speaking after Eduardo Rangel, founder of Grupo Rangel, FedEx’s partner inPortugal, said he was in talks to create a consortium to make a possible bid for CTT and indicatedhe would be interested in CTT’s express business.
CTT is due to be privatised along with other state-owned companies including national airlineTAP to raise much-needed funds for the government. An IPO on the Lisbon stock exchange has beenseen as the likely privatisation method. CTT chairman and CEO Francisco de Lacerda is pushing forprivatisation which he says will help the group to accelerate efficiency gains, growth andfinancial profitability.
In 2012, CTT improved profits, with EBIT up 8% to €81.8 million which represented an 11.5%profit margin. But revenues dropped by 6.5% to €712 million, with mail revenues down 6.7% to €478million on an 8.8% volume fall, and express revenues 4.3% lower at €127 million.
