Royal Mail to be flogged for peanuts

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://tamebay.com/2013/04/royal-mail-t ... anuts.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Royal Mail is set for flotation on the stock market this Autumn in a cut price deal of around £2.5 billion according to The Times. Far from the earlier valuations that priced Royal Mail’s value at nearer to £4 billion it looks like the Government is to rush through the sale of one of the countries assets regardless of price.

It’s quite normal for Government expectations to be pitched unrealistically high – just look at the recent 4G mobile network auctions in June which only raised £2.3 billion, £1.2 billion short of what the Treasury were forecasting.

The big question of course is whether the government should be selling Royal Mail in the first place. Having been a loss maker for many years, Royal Mail has had to pull itself towards profitability but the chances are high the government will end up holding a stake anyway.

Dan and I have a very different view of the Royal Mail and where it should be headed. It’s a public service, albeit one that we pay for, but a bit like the NHS (which we also pay for) everyone benefits from a national postal service.

Do we really want Royal Mail to be sold off? Is it a problem if the government have to dig into the national coffers each year to support the service? Letter business is dying and today’s postal service is all about parcels and ecommerce. If we were to rely on letters only then Royal Mail’s future wouldn’t a bright one but with ecommerce growing ever faster, delivery services aren’t going to become redundant any time soon and Royal Mail should be the crown jewel in UK deliveries.

With a flotation on the stock market pressures on Royal Mail will see more price rises and format changes in the future and that doesn’t support one of the only sectors of the economy that has grown throughout the recession. The country needs ecommerce and ecommerce needs deliveries. If the government really wanted to support ecommerce they’d make sure the postal service functioned with it’s enviable delivery reputation of visiting every doorstep in the country six days a week and focus less on offloading one of our public services when it can’t even achieve a decent price.

[hubbahubba]

spot on,but as the shift manager said a while ago,RM is a business-not a service...

[UnhappyGremlin]

While RM has been a loss maker for years, it has been done intentionally. The bean counters have made 'adjustments' to the books to make it look like the company is struggling, and are still doing so, to make privatisation inevitable, and to ensure it happens ASAP.

[Pinky 1]

While RM has been a loss maker for years, it has been done intentionally. The bean counters have made 'adjustments' to the books to make it look like the company is struggling, and are still doing so, to make privatisation inevitable, and to ensure it happens ASAP.

........... and then cook the books again to show big profits, and make us more attractive to the market

[Donk]

spot on,but as the shift manager said a while ago,RM is a business-not a service...

They must have all been on the same conference call with The Big Giant Head cos they're all using the same words.

yeah, it's a service - like the buses, the railways, gas, electricity, phones, water..................oh wait..............