Definitely times are changing in RM. A lot of those changes happened in Parcelforce years ago. It’s not the end of the world but will be a shock to many. However the present structure both frontline and management must change or RM will die. The question is will both sides realise that before it is too late. The company is on an intensive care ward and the argument appears to be about what sheets to use not what will keep the patient alive. Sad times
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Just keeping the shareholders happy so they don’t all pull out and let the company sink. It’s a dinosaur with staffing issues but with some decent management and maybe a merger it might bounce back as it has a well established delivery network and is trusted by most.
No need for a merger. They just need to become more efficient. The problems are with the unions. When things start to get very bad the staff will except redundancies as product of more automation. I am not sure why anyone would assume that another company would want to take them over.
Furthermore the government would not allow them to close down. Mail has to be delivered. The fact that we are using letters less and less doesn’t change the fact that some things have to be sent by mail
PS what would happen to Moonpig and funky pigeon? I would save a fortune for a start off!!?
Royal Mail is a joke tried to post a parcel abroad and told I couldn’t because there’d been a cyber attack and they weren’t accepting parcels. They directed me to use a courier service.
And Royal Mail wonder why there share price is down 45% over the past year. Turning customers away and directing them towards competitors.
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I’ve heard there might be a Demerger with the international arm of the business called GLS.
This is typically the more profitable arm of the business.
Any news on this as a possibility.
If GLS goes the balance sheet will look lovely for the sale but there is no profit in the rest of the business. Definitely time to get out at that point or better yet before that
GLS results were always included in Royal Mail Group results anyway, it is only very recently with the name change to IDS that the company took the decision to split the business and end cross subsidy.
There’s a train of thought that this was done in an attempt to show the Government how unprofitable letters were and to put pressure on them to allow Royal Mail to drop letters from 6 days to 5.
Although CEO Simon Thompson’s performance in front of a Parliamentary Select Committee was so bad (I’m not quite sure why that hasn’t been a topic of conversation on here?) that there is now almost no chance of that happening. He is being recalled to appear again on the 22nd February.
Today, postal workers in the UK gave the biggest yes vote for industrial action in trade union history.
This is after 6 months of fatiguing strike action and lost wages already.
If that is not a message to investors, and major shareholders, that the people leading the company are completely incompetent and have completely lost the work force, then I don’t know what is?
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50% of IDS ownership is by institutions.
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Its a tricky one with Royal Mail, its losing huge amounts of money but its a national institution, what do you do with it 
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Rationalise or renationalise?!
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Also
The fact Simon Thompson is making threats to put the company into liquidation or a quasi liquidation means I on Wednesday took a position of ‘sell now, ask questions later’.
This isn’t the mark of a competent and experienced leader.
Remove the government restrictions and fire everyone drowning it with inefficiency.
Sadly neither can happen because of government restrictions and unions preventing firing useless staff
So IDS will have to kill Royal Mail and let the government socialise the losses every year.
They could try turning it into the openreach of mail but as there’s no monopoly on the last mile and all the competition has the advantage of no government mandates and a lack of legacy workers, it won’t work.
Deutsche Post DHL Group will probably buy IDS at a discount, and do a better job.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/deutsche-post-reaches-wage-deal-with-workers-averts-strike-1.1894142
I very much doubt it.
You guys are missing a key point. Royal Mail Group as an entirety is not losing money, you are just hearing the company narrative on this point.
GLS, which is the European parcels arm of Royal Mail (and importantly has been since 1999), is making plenty of money, enough to subsidise the UK one price goes everywhere 6 day a week universal service.
So therefore GLS was acquired on profits made by UK postal workers for the company over many years pre-1999, and was a fully fledged part of the group when it was privatised in 2013.
They just don’t want to subsidise anymore, which is why Royal Mail Group has changed its name to IDS.
Main shareholder Daniel Krestinsky has this week boosted his holding in two separate purchases from 23% to 25%.
If there is a complete takeover it will be by Krestinsky, if allowed to by government, I don’t know if they have the legal power to stop him?
He could buy all shares in IDS, delist the company, and then say to UK government, here you go, here’s Royal Mail back, I’m keeping GLS.
Within around 5 or 6 years, the GLS profits would pay for the purchase of the company.
I believe such a move would be completely immoral, but would it be legal?
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Was this funny or in bad taste?
So anyone know what this agreement actually is? Is it a secret.
It’s a provisional agreement, the union have to look over it and if they find it acceptable, they then put it to the union members to vote yes or no.