Royal Mail's post-privatisation property bonanza

[Roy Mayall]

Something that hasn’t been mentioned much in the post-privatisation analysis is the amount of money the Royal Mail stands to make out of its immense property holdings. - See more at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/12/17/ro ... txxXs.dpuf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[clashcityrocker]

That's a very short article.
Did he cut off?

[wandle]

One building alone in the company’s portfolio of disused offices in London – the mail centre in Nine Elms Lane – has been valued at half a billion pounds. That’s one-sixth of what the government sold the whole company for.
The office was closed in 2012, more than a year before the sell-off. And it’s not the only one. Dozens of delivery offices up and down the country, including mine, were closed in the run up to privatisation. Several of them remain unsold.
Could the offices have been kept empty on purpose? Royal Mail bosses now stand to make a lot of money out of the company they once used merely to manage.

Why only the bosses. Roy? Employees are now shareholders too. So we would benefit financially from the sale of these buildings, as much as other shareholders

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Why only the bosses. Roy? Employees are now shareholders too. So we would benefit financially from the sale of these buildings, as much as other shareholders

We would only benefit from any sale of property via shares on 2 occasions, on a payout of a dividend and then the sale price when we sell.

On the selling of our shares as we cannot sell them for 3 years minimum, any property sold now or in the next 2 - 2.5 years is likely to have a minimal effect on the share price when we can sell, except possibly keeping them artificially high during the period we can't sell. If this scenario is accurate then as soon as the property boom is over then the share price may collapse as that particular revenue stream has dried up.

On dividends, as its entirely up to the company whether it issues a dividend and how much, I wouldn't rely on property sales to have an effect on dividends as the company is quite within its right to reinvest the money back into the business as retained earnings, albeit it needs the backing of the majority of shareholders but when doesn't that happen.


Of course as with anything to do with shares the dividend could be small or large, and prices can go down or up.

Also remember that as individuals we have a maximum of 700 free shares but could buy up to £10k worth in one scheme and as much as you wanted via the public scheme. Now how likely is it that a postie has splurged thousands upon thousands buying shares, but how unlikely is it that the current board didn't.