© Europics
10. 08. 12. - 16:16
Post increased earnings
The partly state-owned Austrian Post Corporation has increased its earnings compared to the previous year.
In the first half of 2012 the operating result (EBIT) rose 13.5 per cent to 92.2 million Euros, turnover rose by 3.1 per cent to 1.17 billion Euros, the stock corporation reported today (Friday).
The earnings before taxes, interests, and depreciation (EBITDA) improved to 132.9 million Euros. The EBITDA margin was 11.3 per cent. The cash flow was 112.3 million Euros and thus 19 million higher than last year.
The number of full-time employees was 22,981, which is 269 people less than in the first half of 2011. Due to cut-backs there are only 600 genuine post offices left in Austria, the rest are run as partners of the Post Corporation.
CEO Georg Pölzl announced that staff reductions and restructuring would continue but meanwhile the company had entered the optimization-phase.
He said he expected stable to slightly higher sales for the full year of 2012. Most recently a Post share traded at 1.70 Euros.
Pölzl called this a "very encouraging performance" that was spoiled only by a small number of staff who constantly criticised the company from inside. He also showed content with the idea of putting excess postmen to work in schools. One ex postman has already started as a caretaker in an Upper-Austrian school.
A number of excess postmen had been transferred to the police force, a change which is taking a little longer but according to Pölzl, all the 360 ex-postmen who have switched to the federal service were satisfied with the change.
Inside the Post, the department "letter, advertisement mail and branch offices" reported a sales increase of 2.1 per cent to 741.6 million Euros in the first half of 2012.
Pölzl said: "The downward trend caused by electronic mail substitution and the economic uncertainty and its negative impact on the advertising industry had a negative effect on development."
"On the other hand, a shift from commercial spam to higher-profile-mail products has taken place and deliveries from online shops are now more often sent as letters instead of as parcels."
The department "parcels and logisticts" saw a 4.9 per cent increase to 430.8 million Euros in turnover.
