Austrian Post and Swiss Post in Direct Mail Link-Up

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Austrian Post and Swiss Post have formed a partnership on the delivery of international direct mail.

The two postal operators signed an agreement on Friday (October 15) which will see them combine their international activities in the field of addressed advertising mail.

The Austrian Post company meiller direct GmbH, headquartered in Schwandorf, Germany, will merge with the business operations of Swiss Post Solutions in the business mail area, based in Bamberg, Germany, at the beginning of 2011.

Austrian Post will hold a 65% stake in the newly established company, with subsidiaries in the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, France and Sweden, whereas 35% will be owned by Swiss Post.

Austrian Post CEO Georg Pölzl said: “The founding of this new company, backed by two strong European postal companies, will create a new and more powerful player on the European Market.

“We are extremely confident that this joint venture will enable us to achieve a sustainably positive profit situation in the future.”

The strategic focus of the new company will be the consulting, conception and production of individualised, addressed advertising mail, in particular the production of direct mails and envelopes as well as letter shop activities.

“This fusion will create a new and more powerful player on the European market,” said a joint company statement.

In the future, customers will be able to take advantage of an international range of services offered by a single provider.

The planned merger offers the national postal companies the opportunity to put their highly productive business areas on a new basis.

Moreover, synergy potential along the entire value chain will be exploited, and the two postal providers will press ahead with structural changes caused by the recessionary year 2009 and the decline in the mail order business.

All existing production facilities of the two companies in Germany, Czech Republic, Poland and Russia will be maintained, with some sites adapted to enable a greater specialisation of the services offered.

Swiss Post CEO Jürg Bucher is also optimistic about the future perspectives of the joint venture. He said: “We now have the chance to operate even more efficiently and to further improve services provided to our customers with optimised technologies and processes.”

The joint venture will be headed by Stephan Krauss, who served as CEO of Prinovis until the end of 2008, and was most recently managing director of PrinoTec.

The management will also include CFO Bernhard Butz (previously CFO of Swiss Post Solutions Dialogue Solutions in Germany), Dieter Simon (Sales) and Jürgen Kremser (Technology).

The newly-founded company will be jointly managed by both parent companies. For this reason, it will be consolidated at equity starting with the anticipated closing of the transaction at the end of the year.

Source: Austrian Post