Bpost / PostNL: an expected announcement Monday
The Belgian and Dutch Post announce their merger on Monday. A statement is expected. Probably before market opening.
Two days after the official marriage between giant FedEx parcel delivery and TNT Express, the Belgian and Dutch markets have learned the probable merger of their incumbent postal operators, bpost and PostNL. Although officially we talk about a merger of equals, concretely is that bpost launch a bid for Dutch rival.
We wait for a statement on Monday, probably before market opening.
In exchange, with a valuation of € 4.8 billion, bpost weighs nearly three times as heavy as PostNL
(1.7 billion). The situation in terms of sales is very different, since PostNL finished fiscal 2015 with a turnover of 3.5 billion euros, against 2.4 billion in bpost. We also know that bpost has a comfortable mattress cash, the redemption being Lagardère Retail Travel Belgium should just start.
Who said mass cash, said offensive. Since March, the Belgian operator would already offers twice on its northern neighbor, meeting every time the opposition of its target. Revised upwards, his third attempt would have been more successful.
Offer cash or as securities?
Will it be a cash offer or combining a mixture of cash and shares? If bpost paid partly in shares, this could explain the statements made Friday morning at RTBF Jean-Pascal Labille, former Minister (PS) of Public Enterprises. He had claimed that the state was about to give ten percent of bpost capital to a European postal operator. The current Minister of tutelage, Alexander De Croo, had immediately responded by denying that the state, the majority shareholder with 51% of bpost, intends to sell its shares. If the supply of bpost on PostNL includes a payment in shares equivalent to ten percent of its capital, neither man will be forfeit.
The new law authorizing the privatization of bpost or Proximus now enables such a payment in shares. Although such a bias by the Belgian government lost its majority in bpost, there nevertheless remain the largest shareholder of the group formed with PostNL. Because although it retained its own shares, the largest shareholder in the Dutch, the US investment fund FMR LLC, owns only a ten percent.
Finally, we could therefore see the emergence of a new transnational actor postal weighing 5.9 billion in revenue and valued at over 6.5 billion ... that would have the Belgian State for first shareholder - or majority shareholder if the payment is made entirely in cash!
It would be quite funny, when we remember that there are a dozen years, it was the Dutch Post Office had planned to buy its Belgian counterpart, then 100% owned by the state. Funny too, so we just vote the privatization law, because that is private?
Unions on the alert
The direction of bpost and staff representatives have a meeting to their calendar to Monday. Friday, rumors and speculations born following the statements of Jean-Pascal Labille have caused some agitation among the bpost unions. Mark Mulder, the Liberal Union, it is "logical" that the postal operators wish to collaborate, "certainly when you know it exists on the market behemoths like TNT / FedEx. It would be crazy not to find partner". He also recalled that bpost had almost redeem the Romanian Post a few months ago before giving up due to risk "European" (the fear that the European Commission will put Posta Romana fined for state aid). The union leader has nevertheless expressed concern about the consequences of such collaboration for bpost staff. "What about differences in workers their current status?" has he asked.
His colleague of the socialist union responded with surprise to the information and regretted that trade unions were not informed in recent months.
About the joint meeting on Monday, Mark Mulder said: "We will decide how to react in a common front." Shares are not excluded, he added. What give grist to observers who believe that by making its release broadcast on RTBF, Jean-Pascal Labille sought to cause social unrest boot. For his part, former minister says he is concerned about the disappearance of the public status of the company. But that is already registered in the privatization law ...