Royal Mail Share Discussion Threads

[wiltowin] 14/10/2022 08:17

Hope the CWU are happy now?

[lefrene] 12/10/2022 16:44

careful, if the mail deliveries were every other day, you could lose close to 50% of the small vans and their drivers. You might need the same number of indoor staff, and trunking drivers/trucks, although there should be opportunity there to cut back, as those big trucks are seldom full except at weekends when trucks are stuffed with returning unwanted mail order goods.

[mbmiah] 12/10/2022 16:19

What's the new name for rmg

[wiltowin] 12/10/2022 09:26

Splitting the company up might mean shareholders are shafted

[careful] 07/10/2022 15:26

The risk is that reducing deliveries will still use the same number of vehicles and employees.
Drastic surgery needed, the Unions will fight change.

[gilesy911] 07/10/2022 14:52

Yes very good point who needs letters every day

[lefrene] 07/10/2022 14:37

I doubt the brand name will alter, this is just a re-name of the holding company, but presumably there is a purpose behind it, and one assumes that it is to seperate loss making mail away from parcels and packages. The letter side of things has needed reform for at least 40 years, and perhaps this at long last is how they intend to do it?

When I asked several years ago (freedom of info request) they said they operated 44,000 vehicles, and having seen behind the scenes I know the vast majority of them will be small delivery vans. Cut the deliveries to every other day, and that's likely at least 20,000 vehicles and drivers saved. In one stroke a very profitable enterprise.

[gilesy911] 07/10/2022 14:08

Whoever thought of the new name!!!IDS should be International Distribution Services not International Distributions ServicesJust doesn?t flow right

[spacecake] 07/10/2022 10:02

This company is about as investable as Railtrack, and we all know what happened to them.

[casholaa] 06/10/2022 22:40

I happened to watch the news on-and-off this week. I thought Truss and Starmer were hilarious. Just watch them, watch their faces especially when, they are in front of their minions or attending major functions. IMHO, heads in the clouds, both of them. It's that 15 minutes of fame, I think.

[scrwal] 06/10/2022 14:52

Truss is likely to do anything - she appears to be as clueless as I thought she was in the leadership election.
She has the power to flush things away - when I thought of this quip I didn't realise it implied the U bend as well.

[unastubbs] 06/10/2022 06:47

to provoke discussion I would ask does anyone actually think the British Government will meekly allow IDS to either spin off or sell GLS thus leaving the hopeless UK company with all it's baggage to be eventually re-nationalised? I mean what other course can you foresee if the Union's remain in control? No-one would want to buy it, even for a notional sum. It would eventually be ravaged by the market forces in action where more nimble competitors, unburdened by all the red tape and uncompetitive practices imposed on them through the legacy agreements would be taking their market share away from them while they are still having to stick birthday cards through letterboxes on remote Scottish islands...

So more pertinently, does HMG have the power to stop a PLC from selling a foreign holding if it wants to? I haven't got any answers, but these are the scenarios ahead of us and it is why this is such an interesting share to be in - albeit, I'm considerably underwater!

[careful] 05/10/2022 16:23

Very little discussion here today apart from the good article above.

It would seem the management mean business here and there will be no backing down.
The letters business standing alone is not viable.

What do the CWU think they can achieve ?
The more they damage the company the worse it will be for everyone in the long run.

Pulling out key sections that prevent normal operation should provoke hard ball tactics of laying off many other workers effected without pay.
The suffering of all staff during a strike is the only weapon the management have.

A shame because everyone likes his postie, but it is the militant unions that are their worst enemy.

[geckotheglorious] 05/10/2022 10:01

Spud,

At the moment, yes, they cost a fortune.

But this is just the beginning..

Just like the cost of car batteries, they will get cheaper,and cheaper, and more efficient. Technology is advancing so fast.

Over the air updates are easy.

Think of your Computer updates - are they difficult?

Erm no!

The future is coming fast, whether we like it or not.

[unastubbs] 05/10/2022 05:54

Alastair Osbourne in The Times this morning:

"No one messes lightly with the Royal Mail name. Who can forget the company’s sojourn as Consignia: a moniker that went down about as well as a Kwasi Kwarcrash mini-budget. So, maybe people should ask themselves what chairman Keith Williams is up to with his rebrand of the Royal Mail group as the catchy International Distributions Services. And nobody more so than Dave Ward, the boss of the CWU union, whose members are limbering up for another 19 days of strikes. Even he can’t accuse Williams of hiding the possible end game here. In July, he spelt out the logic of a new holding company name to “reflect the group structure of two separate companies”: the UK’s Royal Mail and the overseas parcel wing GLS. As the group said at the time: “Our intention is to have clearer financial separation with no cross subsidy”. Or, to put it another way, something radically different to today. Just now, Royal Mail is losing £1 million a day, with Barclays analysts also pencilling in a hit of anywhere between “£80 million and £320 million” from the extra strike days in the run up to Christmas. Contrast GLS, where consensus estimates are for £322 million profit. Break-up valuations reinforce the point. Analysts reckon GLS is worth almost £4 billion. Yet, thanks to Royal Mail’s negative value, the market cap, on shares up 5 per cent yesterday to 207p, is only half that. Williams told July’s AGM that he would “look for significant operational change or split the company”. And Ward is playing a dangerous game if he thinks it’s all bluff. As Williams puts it: “Royal Mail needs GLS. GLS probably doesn’t need Royal Mail.” Split the group and GLS becomes another competitor for the parcels on which Royal Mail’s future depends. Worse, a break-up will cut the UK wing’s access to capital, forcing a far more brutal modernisation on its 140,000 workers — 115,000 in the CWU — than Williams presently envisages. The result would be mass job losses. To boot, the clock is ticking. The group has half-year figures on November 17, when it has to spell out the financial hit from the strikes and its options. In the absence of progress, the big one is a break-up: one reason, many think, that the Czech Sphinx Daniel Kretinsky wants to raise his 22 per cent stake. To avoid a split? Well, after five months of fruitless talks, Williams says it’s time for the union “to put up or shut up about going to Acas”: the dispute resolution outfit, which may find Royal Mail’s offer of a 5.5 per cent pay rise, linked to new ways of working, a bit stingy. But he can’t wait for the CWU, which didn’t respond to requests for comment. So, in a bid to cut financial losses, Royal Mail is preparing fresh job cuts. And, having given the CWU a month’s notice that it was ripping up labour agreements struck before 2013’s 330p-a-share float, it’ll start implementing changes to working practices on October 22. They include stuff other businesses take for granted, such as not having technophobic union reps in charge of rotas, overtime and annual leave. No doubt Williams would prefer not to preside over the last post for a unified group. But, given the value trapped inside it, he has a fiduciary duty to prepare for a split. As he says of a potential break-up: “Many people thought we would not pull the labour agreements but we did. We’ve reached a crucial stage here.” For its members’ own interests, the CWU needs to wake up to that."

[spob] 05/10/2022 01:21

Yeah and just like ocado robots

they cost a fortune

require lots of maintenance

very expensive replacement parts

lots of endless software updates

and probably catch fire sometimes too. Lol

[casholaa] 04/10/2022 20:52

Elon has created robots which don't need food and never turn up late and which are likely to be efficient and precise

[spob] 04/10/2022 19:53

New thread: IDS

[spacecake] 04/10/2022 19:39

Name changes are a cosmetic cover up job, RMG management need to get a grip, changing names means nothing.

[encarter] 04/10/2022 11:47

Proposed changes to employee absence policy will have a positive impact on profit. Currently they receive 6 weeks full pay including shift allowance then 20 weeks full pay followed by 26 weeks half pay, which encourages high sick rates.

[brownbear3] 04/10/2022 11:31

Remember consignia , didn't last . Royal Mail is a world wide brand. Maybe there's more to this than meets the eye .

[unastubbs] 04/10/2022 11:17

bit of admin, change their letterheads, company stamps, that sort of thing, probably the thick end of a million*. it's not like they have to respray all their vans or go on a big advertising spree to get everyone on board with the new identity.

*i'm guessing of course :)

[gilesy911] 04/10/2022 10:29

So how much will this name change split cost??