Royal Mail appoints German boss to navigate the death of letters

The German has taken home in excess of £3m over the last two years, more than double the £1.3m paid to outgoing Royal Mail chief Simon Thompson over the same period.

The task facing Seidenberg cannot be underestimated. One of the worst campaigns of industrial action in a generation drew to a close last week as two-thirds of CWU members backed a 10pc pay rise over three years and a £500 lump sum bonus.

In return, the CWU ceded to demands from the Royal Mail board to some changes in working conditions, such as later start times so that deliveries can be better spread throughout the day.

“With Royal Mail’s brand, unrivalled scale and postmen and women connecting every household and business in the country, we have plenty of opportunity ahead of us. But we must seize it,” Seidenberg said as he was appointed.

“By enabling Royal Mail to best serve our customers’ evolving demands, we can deliver benefits for customers, employees and shareholders alike.”

Seidenberg is a parcels man through and through. He spent 15 years at Deutsche Post before joining GLS Germany in 2015.

Before taking over as GLS chief executive in June 2020, Seidenberg rammed through repeated price rises in Germany as well as championing carbon-neutral deliveries.

And under his tenure, GLS revenue has grown by 47pc over the last three years. Profits, meanwhile, have swelled by two-thirds over the same period.

But it is the future of Royal Mail letter deliveries that will likely define whether Seidenberg can be successful where Back and Thompson have not.

Royal Mail has been lobbying with the Government for almost two years to change laws requiring letter deliveries to be completed six-days-a-week. Customer feedback, bosses say, is that households are not interested in a Saturday letters service.

Letter volumes are down 30pc since the onset of the pandemic, and chairman Keith Williams, a rare constant on the Royal Mail board, has repeatedly warned that the company will struggle to turn a profit if ministers refuse to acquiesce to the company’s demands.

Sources close to the company believe that government opposition is softening. The line from Westminster was previously that there are “no plans” to make any changes to postal laws known as the Universal Service Obligation (USO). 

It is now that there are “no current plans” to make any alterations – an important distinction, sources insist.