6 August 2012 at 07:30 CET – The Hague
Full press release pdf [609 kB]
Highlights Q2
- Underlying revenues down 0.2% to €1,022 million
- Underlying cash operating income €10 million
- Net debt increased by €129 million versus end 2011 to €1,131 million
- Performance Mail in the Netherlands impacted by additional costs and delay of letter mail reorganisation
- Good performance Parcels and International
- Interim dividend 2012: €0.181 per share to be paid fully in shares
CEO statement
Herna Verhagen, CEO of PostNL, states: “The second quarter continued the weaker than anticipated start to the year. Parcels showed good volume and revenue growth in all business lines and a strong operational performance. Trans o flex contributed positively to revenue and results. Also, International contributed positively to overall underlying cash operating income. The quality issues that had started in March in Mail in the Netherlands resulted in additional costs and in the delay of the letter mail reorganisation, both clearly impacting the Q2 performance.
In April, the decision was taken to stop the roll out temporarily because of larger than expected problems resulting in quality issues. During my first full quarter as CEO of PostNL, my priorities were to improve quality in order to retain customers. We established measures and solutions to facilitate a controlled roll out of the letter mail reorganisation. We are currently piloting these solutions, which we developed in dialogue with the Works Council. After a careful review of the results, we will take a decision with respect to the further roll out of the reorganisation at the latest in Q4. We remain confident we will reach our longer term savings targets.
Looking at our performance during the first two quarters of the year, we reaffirm our underlying cash operating income outlook for the year, although we expect that the full year result will be at the bottom half of the range. The outlook is sensitive to further developments in the roll out of Master plans and the sale of real estate.
We announce an interim dividend of €75 million to be paid fully in shares.”
Note: underlying figures are at constant currency and exclude one-offs as detailed on page 4
About PostNL
PostNL processes 8.7 billion addressed postal items (including 106 million parcels) each year and delivers to addresses in the Benelux, Germany, the UK and Italy. PostNL’s main business is mail, parcels and e-commerce. The company also provides services in the area of data and document management, direct marketing and fulfilment. PostNL employs some 65,500 people. In 2011 the company generated a turnover of nearly 4.3 billion euros.
