Royal Mail forced to delay results amid £3.5bn takeover bid

It lost £319m in the first half of the year after losing £1bn the previous year amid crippling strike action.

Bosses have put forward proposals to shake up the postal service’s so-called universal service obligation (USO), which requires it to deliver letters six days a week, warning that outdated regulations have left it in a financially unsustainable position.

Under plans submitted to Ofcom, the company would deliver second class mail just three times a week, though six-day deliveries would be maintained for first class post.

Royal Mail has also pushed through a number of reforms to improve efficiency under chief executive Martin Seidenberg.

On Thursday, the board of IDS reiterated its forecasts that the company will break even for the financial year, excluding voluntary redundancy costs.

Delays to financial results are often caused by audit issues. Fashion giant Asos last year pushed back its full-year numbers by a week to give auditors at PwC more time to carry out their review.

S4 Capital, the digital advertising firm run by Sir Martin Sorrell, was forced to delay its results twice in 2022 due to audit issues. The blunder knocked more than a third off S4’s market value.