The state development bank KfW sold 50 million shares in DHL Group (formerly Deutsche Post) on Tuesday. The price was 43.45 euros per piece, the institute announced late on Tuesday evening. The German state will therefore receive a gross amount of around two billion euros. The XETRA closing price was 44.41 euros.
The placement in an accelerated procedure was aimed at institutional investors. With the sale, the state share falls to 16.5 percent. KfW remains a major shareholder in the post office. The logistics and postal company group has been operating under the name DHL Group since mid-2023.
The placement has a negative impact on the company’s share price. In XETRA trading on Wednesday, the shares temporarily fell by 3.96 percent to 42.65 euros. This is the lowest level since the end of November. With the partial sale by the federal government, the free float increases and with it the weighting in the DAX, a trader noted. “If the federal government had sold a larger share, the whole thing could have been viewed more positively.” At 16.5 percent, the stock surplus is still large, and given the federal government’s financial situation, further sales are to be expected in the future. This prospect is currently weighing on stocks.
Even after the transaction is completed, Kfw will remain the largest individual shareholder in Deutsche Post. She has committed not to sell any more shares for 90 days.
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The move was not unexpected as the government needs money given the budget debate and the German rail network in need of renovation. The federal government wants to modernize the rail network with billions of euros in the coming years – plans that were thrown into disarray by the Federal Constitutional Court’s budget ruling in November last year. In mid-December, however, it was clear that there would be no cuts in rail spending.
However, other sources of money than originally planned must be found. In this context, finance ministry circles also said that federal investments that were no longer necessary should be sold. In this context, “Spiegel” reported that the government only wanted to hold a strategic stake of 25 percent plus one share in Deutsche Telekom. At the post office, however, the traffic light should plan to sell more shares.
At the end of 2023, the federal government held 13.83 percent of Deutsche Telekom, and KFW held a further 16.63 percent. That makes a total of just under 30.5 percent.
Tens of thousands of postal complaints again in one year
Last year, tens of thousands of citizens were once again so upset by delayed or lost letters and packages that they complained to a federal agency. The number of entries was 41,589, the Federal Network Agency announced on Wednesday in Bonn. In 2022 there were 43,125 complaints. Compared to 2021, when there were only around 15,000, the level of complaints is still very high. The opportunity to criticize applies to the entire postal and parcel industry, but 90 percent of the complaints are directed against the market leader Deutsche Post.
The supervisory authority had already announced the preliminary figure for 2023 in mid-December, and now it has announced the final annual figure. Several billion letters and parcels are sent in Germany every year; in relation to this, the proportion of complaints is very low. However, some citizens may also have had negative experiences with letter and parcel delivery, but did not complain to the Bonn authorities. In the past, the postal service had, among other things, cited high levels of sickness to justify the deficits. Trade unionists complain that the company is short-staffed at some locations in order to reduce costs.
FRANKFURT/BONN (Dow Jones/dpa-AFX)
Image source: Vytautas Kielaitis / Shutterstock.com, Erasmus Wolff / Shutterstock.com, Deutsche Post