Royal Mail Staff 'Will Have To Keep Shares'

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://news.sky.com/story/1054585/royal ... eep-shares" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tens of thousands of Royal Mail staff could be forced to hold onto shares in the company for months after a potential stock market listing as Government ministers attempt to avoid an instant mass share sale.

I have learnt that the scheme is being drawn up by the Government to try to avoid the process of 'stagging', which blighted the huge privatisations of the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher. Stagging is the term given to those who buy or receive shares at the offer price of a flotation and then sell them immediately into the market.

Under plans enshrined in legislation passed last year, the Government is to hand Royal Mail staff a 10 per cent stake in the company as part of a project to inject private capital. That could take the form of a sale to a single buyer or, more likely, a stock market listing that would place Royal Mail on the cusp of the FTSE-100.

A team of officials from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Shareholder Executive, which oversees the management of state-owned companies, is working on the employee share offering.

The plans are not yet finalised but senior Government sources confirmed that an 'anti-stagging' clause was likely to be included in the scheme to avoid the prospect of millions of pounds-worth of additional shares being dumped in the market as soon as the listing takes place. It is unclear exactly how long staff would be asked to hold onto their share awards.

The process to privatise Royal Mail, which has eluded previous secretaries of state including Lord Mandelson, is being overseen by Michael Fallon, the business minister.

Mr Fallon told the Financial Times earlier this week that the conditions were ripening for an injection of external capital into the company.

"You have got a business that is profitable, doesn’t have a pension deficit, will be operating in a clear regulatory environment and would no longer be competing with schools and hospitals for scarce capital," he told the newspaper.

Under Moya Greene, its Canadian chief executive, Royal Mail's management team has been discussing the company's prospects with potential investors in the UK, Canada and the US as it tries to familiarise fund managers with its financial performance.

Ms Greene, who joined about two years ago, has been cutting tens of thousands of jobs as part of a plan to automate many of Royal Mail's processes and modernise the company. Her actions have caused some tensions with trade unions, but their hostility to a privatisation process appears to have eased in the context of previous efforts.

The company's efforts have begun to pay off, with operating profit increasing from £12m to £144m in the six months to September 2012, on the back of a surge in demand for sending parcels as consumers switch their buying habits to online retailers.

A BIS spokesman declined to comment.

[daveallum]

Nothing new here then,I was working for British Gas at the time of it's privatisation and whatever we were given at the time,we could not sell them for two years,after that time we could sell them but we paid tax on whatever money we got for them,if we held them for three years and then sold them we didn't pay any tax.BTW,they were held in trust for us (by Lloyds I think it was),all we had was a certificate which told us how many we had which when the time was right we instructed Lloyds to sell them on our behalf and then wait for the cheque to arrive.

Sounds as though this is going to be something similar.

[motch]

Nothing new here then,I was working for British Gas at the time of it's privatisation and whatever we were given at the time,we could not sell them for two years,after that time we could sell them but we paid tax on whatever money we got for them,if we held them for three years and then sold them we didn't pay any tax.BTW,they were held in trust for us (by Lloyds I think it was),all we had was a certificate which told us how many we had which when the time was right we instructed Lloyds to sell them on our behalf and then wait for the cheque to arrive.

Sounds as though this is going to be something similar.

Did you wait 2 years or 3 to sell (or more) was it a good deal in the end?

[SP115]

Will new(ish) starters on 6 month temp contracts get any shares?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Will new(ish) starters on 6 month temp contracts get any shares?

until the details are known its impossible to say. But if they are held in trust rather than issued to us then there is a good chance.

[daveallum]

Nothing new here then,I was working for British Gas at the time of it's privatisation and whatever we were given at the time,we could not sell them for two years,after that time we could sell them but we paid tax on whatever money we got for them,if we held them for three years and then sold them we didn't pay any tax.BTW,they were held in trust for us (by Lloyds I think it was),all we had was a certificate which told us how many we had which when the time was right we instructed Lloyds to sell them on our behalf and then wait for the cheque to arrive.

Sounds as though this is going to be something similar.

Did you wait 2 years or 3 to sell (or more) was it a good deal in the end?

Sorry for the delay in posting (been visiting daughter in Norfolk).I personally waited until the three years were up before I sold them and for me it was a good thing as the value of the shares had risen but as everyone knows shares can go down as well as up.We also were given the chance to purchase extra shares at a favourable rate but as with the others they too were held in trust with the same time constraints.I worked in the industry for 26 years and have now sold every share that I was given or bought.

[pj2001]

Lets hope they do better than collegue shares, what a fiasco that was.

[Darren Bent]

and I wonder do the managers have the same rules as us.

[daveallum]

and I wonder do the managers have the same rules as us.

They should if they run it the same way as the British Gas privatisation