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InPost, the biggest operator of postal lockers in the UK, is circling the struggling delivery firm Yodel, which is grappling with a squeeze on its finances.
Executives from InPost, whose headquarters are in Krakow, Poland, are understood to have visited the UK to analyse Yodel’s operations before a potential bid for the company.
City sources said that InPost was one of several firms considering a swoop for Yodel, which has endured a turbulent 12 months after an aborted sale, a rescue deal and plunging customer service ratings.
InPost relies mainly on third parties to deliver parcels to its lockers. It is thought that by acquiring Yodel, the company could bring deliveries in-house and guarantee its lockers are filled and emptied on time.
Yodel employs 10,000 people, rising to 12,000 at peak times. It was previously owned by the Barclay family, the long-time owners of the Telegraph newspaper, and was thought to have been rescued a year ago when it struck a deal with a consortium led by the rival delivery firm Shift.
The takeover collapsed, however, and Mike Hancox, Yodel’s chief executive, seized control of the business, backed by the distressed lending specialist Independent Growth Finance and the London-listed company Paypoint.
Meanwhile Yodel was forced to divert business to rival delivery firms at Christmas because of driver shortages and other “capacity constraints”.
In November, InPost’s international boss, Michael Rouse, told investors that it had made a “strategic investment” into Yodel to “secure long-term to-door delivery options” as part of a commercial tie-up. Rouse declined to confirm the nature of the investment but said that it gave InPost “optionality”.
A putative takeover risks being complicated by Yodel’s legal issues. The aborted sale to the Shift consortium has led to a High Court row over ownership and allegations of misappropriation of assets.
“It would be a complicated takeover because of all the legal issues. Yodel is a business that’s living hand to mouth,” one senior industry source said.
“They will either need a cash injection to survive or there will be some sort of takeover. It would be a change of strategy for InPost [to deliver to homes as well as lockers] — but they have big growth ambitions and they will want control over the whole network.”
InPost’s locker system has benefited from anxiety among consumers about falling victim to “porch pirates” who steal parcels left on doorsteps by delivery firms. It has rolled out 9,200 locker locations in the UK, where parcels can be left securely and picked up when convenient to the customer. Some 3,000 of these have launched in the past year.
The UK is catching up on this trend, which has been popular in Europe for some time. InPost has nearly 50,000 locker locations in total and last year handled more than one billion parcels for the first time.
The company is listed in Amsterdam and boasts a market capitalisation of almost €8 billion, more than double the value of Royal Mail. Its largest shareholder is PPF Group, the investment firm founded by Petr Kellner, who was the wealthiest person in the Czech Republic at the time of his death in 2021. PPF owns 28.75 per cent of the business.
InPost and PPF declined to comment. Yodel did not respond.
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