Parcelforce, which currently employs about 12,000 people, lost almost £200m last year and has been hard hit by competition from express parcel delivery firms.
THE "conveyor belt" for global commerce is how Scott Davis, the boss of UPS, describes his company, the world's biggest express-parcel shipper.
Would-be partners must be able to show that it is in customers' best interests for them to co-operate.UPS and DHL stress that their proposed deal just covers air freight; they will still compete in all the other bits of the express-parcel business, including ground collection and delivery.
Aggressive logistics companies such as UPS and Fedex have become powerful competitors in express mail, parcels and freight delivery.
TPG itself is the result of a merger in 1996 between PTT, the original state monopolist in the Netherlands, and TNT, an Australian express and parcels group.
Deutsche Post is the subject of several legal disputes, the outcome of which may determine whether it can be floated at all.The most important court case was brought six years ago by UPS, a giant American express and parcels operator, which alleges that Deutsche Post has long benefited from illegal state aid.
In the first ten months of this fiscal year, the Postal Service saw a 56percentt increase over the prior year in the volume of its Shipping Services, which includes Priority Mail, Express Mail, Parcel Select and certain other parcel products.
Non-food home delivery in Europe is usually fulfilled by carrier, express, and parcel providers (CEP), and without customers having to be at home (Fernie et al. 2009).
Mrs. Mott's negotiations with a French Post Office official for expressing a parcel to Switzerland.
