Royal Mail to return £400m to shareholders after pandemic boom

Royal Mail have said it would return £400m to shareholders after the postal company forecast higher annual earnings in its UK business following a strong first half.

The company, one of the world’s oldest postal firms, reported a surge in group adjusted operating profit to £404m for the six months ended Sept. 26 and forecast full-year profit for its UK business of about £500m.

The pandemic led to seismic shifts for the postal service, including new “Scan-in / Scan-out” technology in all Mail Centres and Regional Distribution Centres.

Simon Thompson, chief executive, said: “The pandemic has resulted in a structural shift and accelerated the trends we have been seeing. Domestic parcel volumes, excluding international, are up around a third since the pandemic, whilst addressed letter volumes, excluding elections, are down around a fifth.”

“This reaffirms that our strategy to rebalance our offering more towards parcels is the right one, and demonstrates the need to start defining what a sustainable Universal Service is for the future. I want to thank our teams for what we have delivered so far: it is an impressive start but there is still much more to do together.”

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