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NO CHANGE: Royal Mail’s future owner will honour delivery schedule
Photo credit: Flickr/Steve 1
Royal Mail’s probable new owner accepts the postal service’s commitment to delivering UK letters six days a week.
Talking exclusively to the BBC, Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky emphasised that he “completely excluded” making any change to the existing Universal Service Obligation (USO) requirement.
Kretinsky already has a 27.6 per cent holding in Royal Mail’s parent company International Distribution Services (IDS) and he has now put in a £3.6 billion (€4.3 billion) bid for the remainder. Taking assumed debts into consideration, the operation will be worth £5 billion (€5.9 billion) in all.
The IDS board has now accepted Kretinsky’s offer and the shareholders are expected to approve the deal, although the government will have the last word on whether or not this nationally important transaction can go ahead.
In a BBC exclusive, Kretinsky revealed that he was ready to share profits with Royal Mail’s 150,000 employees but was less keen on the unions’ suggestion that workers should have a stake in the company.
The USO could prove another obstacle for both government and unions.
Ninety-two per cent of first class mail was arriving punctually 10 years ago, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) regulator announced. But by 2023 when Royal Mail was fined £5.6 million (€6.6 million) for failing to meet delivery targets, this had dwindled to 74 per cent.
Despite Kretinsky’s assertion that Royal Mail would continue delivering six days a week “as long as I’m alive” his formal offer in fact puts in writing that he will honour the USO for five years.
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