Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – The management of Poczta Polska is happy with last year’s results but worries about tough competition and delayed commercialization.
Poczta Polska (PP), the Polish Post, had PLN 300m (EUR 77.1m) of net income last year, according to preliminary results. Sales grew 7 percent despite the fact that PP workers protested for over 10 days and to reach agreement the company employing 100,000 people had to increase its wage fund by PLN 60m. Since 2009, PP will lose its monopoly to deliver letters under 50g of weigh.
“It would be much easier to operate if PP was transformed into a company”, Zbigniew Niezgoda, PP general director said.
He believes that commercialization should go smoothly. The planned IPO, however, will be more difficult.
“It takes several years to prepare so big company which needs deep restructuring to be listed”, the director admitted.
The state bill provides for PP privatization in 2011 at the earliest.
The company plans big investment, including an integrated IT system. In Wroclaw, Katowice, Gdansk and Bydgoszcz PP builds sorting plants, worth PLN 120m each. Meanwhile, PP is trying to delay the full liberalization of the post market.
Last year, PP increased its sales by PLN 220m. The sales generated by package deliveries rose 23.9 percent.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.257)