TNT Post Group N.V.

TNT Post Group N.V.

Post Office Box 1300
1100 KG Amsterdam
Netherlands
(20) 500 60 00
Fax: (20) 500 70 00
Web site: http://www.tntpost-group.com

Public Company
Incorporated: 1998
Employees: 100,666
Sales: NLG 15.2 billion (US $7.53 billion) (1997)
Stock Exchanges: Amsterdam New York London Frankfurt
Ticker Symbol: TP
SICs: 4212 Local Trucking Without Storage; 4215 Courier Services, Except by Air; 4225 General Warehousing & Storage; 4513 Air Courier Services; 4731 Arrangement of Transportation of Freight & Cargo

TNT Post Group N.V. (TPG) provides domestic and international mail services, express distribution, and logistic services. It includes the Dutch postal service, which is the first such service to be part of a publicly traded company, and is considered one of the most efficient postal operators in the world, delivering 22 million mail items every day. The company’s mail division also offers domestic services such as direct marketing, direct mail, and unaddressed advertising, and the company provides international bulk mailing services. Under the TNT brand, the company’s express services distribute documents, parcels, and freight internationally, constituting one of the four main players in the market (along with United Parcel Service, FedEx, and DHL). Logistics includes the management of a customer’s entire supply chain, encompassing transport, stock management, order picking, and information systems management. TPG’s logistics sector specializes in specific industry segments, most notably medical supplies and automotive parts. TNT Post Group has branches in 55 countries and operates in more than 200 countries.

TNT Post Group is essentially a combination of the Dutch post office and Australia-based TNT Limited. Prior to the 1980s European post offices were typically included within state-owned post and telephone companies, known as PTTs. In the 1980s these companies began to be privatized, with the Netherlands PTT gaining its independence in 1989 and then emerging as a public company, Koninklijke PTT Nederland N.V. (KPN), in 1994. Two years later KPN acquired TNT. In June 1998 TNT Post Group was demerged from KPN, creating a new entity focused on mail, express, and logistics and leaving KPN purely a telecommunications firm.

Dutch Postal Service’s Early History

In the early 18th century cities were the main purveyors of postal services in The Netherlands, known at the time as the Dutch Republic of the United Provinces. Over time the cities acceded their roles as postmasters to the provinces, leading to the 1752 creation of the Statenpost, which held monopolies on domestic service and had improved relations with foreign postal services. The United Provinces were taken over by France in 1795 and transformed into the Batavian Republic, which was modeled on the revolutionary French republic. Thus in 1799 the Statenpost was reorganized into a single national service based on the French model.

Napoleon changed the Batavian Republic into the kingdom of Holland in 1806. The following year the Dutch postal service became part of the Ministry of Finance, with the first Postal Act setting up regulations on the collection, transport, and delivery of letters. Rates were made uniform across the entire nation, based on weights and distances. Required to make significant contributions to the Treasury, the postal service seemed to many Dutch citizens to be a tax-raising organization rather than a public service body. Meantime, after the fall of Napoleon, the kingdom of The Netherlands gained its independence in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna.

In the second half of the 19th century the Dutch postal service evolved into a more modern entity. The Postal Act of 1850 mandated that the postal service existed to serve the public interest. Postal tariffs were simplified, and the postage stamp made its debut in 1852. That same year, every municipality in The Netherlands acquired what were essentially “post offices,” places where letters were posted for delivery and collected. The Netherlands could boast of a well-run postal service by 1870. New services, including the postcard and parcel post, were soon added.

Automation and Restructuring in the 20th Century

The Great Depression had a profound effect on the postal service. Rates were reduced and efforts were made to cut costs. The first steps toward mechanization were taken, including the 1931 debut of the Marchand Transforma, which was the first sorting machine, capable of sorting mail into 400 destinations with the help of an operator feeding in the mail by hand. In another cost-cutting move, the number of daily deliveries was reduced from three to two. Despite this, increased efficiency enabled mail to be delivered faster, with items posted by 6:00 in the evening being delivered the following morning. A more commercially savvy postal service also launched a major—for the era—advertising campaign.

The postal service operated in the red following World War II. Once again, rates were raised and cost-cutting measures were undertaken, particularly attempts to control labor costs. In 1949 a national analysis of processing and delivery statistics led to the closure of some smaller post offices. Needing to become even more efficient, the postal service restructured operations in the 1960s and 1970s so that certain tasks were concentrated within larger units. Mail began to be processed at 18 (later reduced to 12) “mail interchange centers,” where highly efficient sorting and canceling machines were installed. In 1977 the postcode made its debut, allowing further automation, with mail now being sorted down to a postman’s route rather than a city. Deliveries were reduced to one round per day during the 1970s. By the mid-1980s the postal service was profitable.

Privatized in 1989, Floated in 1994

The Netherlands PTT, which included both the Dutch postal service and the state-run telephone monopoly, gained its independence from government control in 1989 although it remained state owned. Netherlands PTT became a private company called PTT Nederland N.V., with PTT Post and PTT Telecom subsidiaries. PTT Post—headed by President Ad J. Scheepbouwer—now had much greater latitude to seek out opportunities for growth at a time when traditional postal services were being rocked by the increasing popularity of telex, fax, and e-mail, in addition to the rapid ascendance of international express delivery services.

Privatization opened the door to PTT Post gaining in a short period a commanding portion of the “remailing” sector. Re-mailing involved taking in bulk consignments from foreign corporate clients and then wrapping, addressing, labeling, and shipping the mail to a specified list of customers in another country. Such services often provided cost savings to the clients, as well as delivery faster than that of the clients’ domestic postal service. In 1992 PTT Post launched an ambitious automation program, eventually dubbed Briefpost 2000, which aimed to increase the percentage of machine-sorted post from the 25 percent of 1990 to about 90 percent by 2000. The result would be not only reduced costs but also improved service quality.

Another key—and particularly bold—post-privatization move came in 1992 when PTT Post joined with the postal services of Sweden, France, Germany, and Canada to acquire 50 percent of GD Express Worldwide (GDEW). The other half-interest in GDEW remained with TNT Limited, which had created it. Operating under the trade name TNT Express Worldwide, GDEW combined the express mail and parcel activities of TNT and the five postal services. This marked the beginning of the increasingly close relationship between PTT Post and TNT.

In June 1994 The Netherlands state sold to the public 30 percent of its shares in PTT Nederland, which was renamed Koninklijke PTT Nederland N.V. (KPN). The NLG 6.8 billion (US $3.9 billion) raised marked the largest initial public offering in Dutch history. KPN obtained a listing on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. The flotation was unusual in that most European PTTs were split into separate postal and telecom companies before being taken public. The decision not to do so indicated the strong position that PTT Post held, strong enough to stand alongside PTT Telecom in a publicly traded company. In late 1995 The Netherlands sold another 25 percent of KPN through a secondary offering, leaving the state without a controlling interest in the company. Shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time, and then in 1996 listings were added in Frankfurt and London. It was also in 1996 that KPN acquired full control of both TNT and GDEW.

Company Perspectives:

TNT Post Group’s mission is to achieve a recognized world leadership position in its three business areas—mail, express, and logistics—based on a strong market position in Europe.

TNT’s Early History

TNT Limited began in 1946 when Ken W. Thomas started operating a one-man trucking business in Sydney, Australia. After several years of steady growth, he incorporated the business as a private company in 1951. Continuing growth over the next decade, with the expansion of the company’s fleet and extension of its routes across Australia, led to its incorporation as a public company in 1962, under the name Thomas Nationwide Transport Limited (TNT), and listing on the Sydney Stock Exchange the following year. Access to public funds allowed the company to continue expanding until, as the end of the decade approached, the limits of the Australian trucking market became apparent and TNT began to look for opportunities to extend its business beyond Australia. The chance came in 1967, a key year in TNT’s history, when the company merged with another growing Australian transport enterprise, the Alltrans Group. Like TNT, Alltrans was another company that began in a small way in the optimistic environment of postwar Australia. One of Alltrans’s two principal shareholders, Peter Abeles, was a refugee from war-torn Hungary. Abeles stepped off a ship in Sydney in the late 1940s with £4,000. With a partner, George Rockey, he bought two trucks on time payment, named them Samson and Delilah, and, like Thomas, set about building up his business. Abeles would spend weeks driving his car through the Australian bush, drumming up contracts for the fledgling business. Although the merger with TNT involved discarding the Alltrans name and Thomas remaining head of the merged group, Abeles soon emerged as the driving force in the company, its key strategist, and its public face.

The merger gave TNT its first international operations via Alltrans’s activities in New Zealand, which had begun in 1964. The size of the new group gave it the base required to begin expanding internationally. TNT began an ambitious international acquisition program, starting with its entry into the tough U.S. trucking industry through the purchase of a California truck line, Walkup’s Merchant Express Inc., in 1969. In 1970 TNT bought Gill Interprovincial Lines in Canada and acquired one-third of a shipping company, Bulkships. Over the next two years, the expansion continued with the purchase of another Canadian operator, Scott Transport, one-sixth of the Union Steamship Co. of New Zealand Ltd., and TNT’s entry into the U.S. air transport business through a joint venture with Shulman Transport Enterprises Inc. In 1972 the company also opened a small office in the United Kingdom, its first European presence. These swift moves were not without problems, however. The U.S. trucking industry was a difficult market for a newcomer. TNT’s efforts to move into this market were accompanied by a series of wildcat strikes, mysterious bombings, and arson attacks. The damage caused by this interference was the first in a number of problems that would affect TNT’s U.S. operations for years.

The company continued with its acquisition plans, aimed at attaining Abeles’s vision of an integrated global transport operation. In 1973 TNT went into partnership with two West German companies to form an international ship brokering company, Montan TNT Pty Ltd. It also formed Kwikasair Ltd., an express delivery service between the United Kingdom and continental Europe. TNT’s U.S. base also was expanded, through the purchase in the same year of Overland Western Ltd., a trucking company operating in Ontario and New York and Michigan, and of Acme Fast Freight Inc. The company also began developing a strong South American presence in 1973 when it bought 70 percent of the Brazilian transport group Pampa OTT and established Kwikasair Brazil.

Failed Takeover of Ansett in 1972

It was TNT’s activities within Australia, however, that suddenly brought the company to international attention in 1972. TNT had continued to grow steadily since the 1967 merger, and it was well on its way to becoming the country’s dominant transport group. In 1972 the company tried to accelerate the process by launching a hostile takeover bid for Ansett Transport Industries Limited (Ansett), the operator of one of Australia’s two major domestic airlines. Protected from free competition by a government-endorsed airline duopoly, Ansett was a highly profitable company that would have secured TNT’s position as Australia’s leading carrier. Ansett’s chairman and founder, Sir Reginald Ansett, was a tough adversary. At the height of the battle he called on the Victorian state government, headed by his personal friend Sir Henry Bolte, for assistance. The government ruled that it was unacceptable for a company based in Victoria to be taken over by a company from New South Wales, and it stopped the takeover. TNT withdrew with 23 percent of Ansett’s shares, but kept a close eye on Ansett.

The failed bid for Ansett did not stop TNT’s international growth program, which continued through the mid-1970s with a series of acquisitions, particularly in the United Kingdom and Canada, that the company was using as launch pads for later growth in Europe and the United States, respectively. In 1975 Abeles foreshadowed the company’s next international step when he launched an attack on international shipping conferences and the effect these cartels had on the global transport industry and trade prospects. The following year TNT directly challenged one of the most powerful of these cartels, the North Atlantic Freight Conference, comprising some of the world’s largest shipping companies, by operating a nonconference container shipping service, Trans Freight Lines, on the Atlantic run.

Ten years after the merger between TNT and Alltrans, TNT had become Australia’s major transport group, despite its failure to take over Ansett, and was a growing presence internationally. The group’s annual revenue had increased tenfold from A $46 million in 1967 to A $462.7 million by 1977, while its after-tax profits had risen over the same period from A $956,000 to A $15.3 million. Such a swift expansion, however, had left the group exposed to a wide range of fluctuating markets and economies. TNT had bought heavily, was a relative newcomer in many of its markets, and was losing money from some of its operations in the difficult U.S. market. In 1977 to 1978, for the first time since its public incorporation in 1961, TNT’s profits fell.

Gained 50 Percent of Ansett in 1979

The company responded with a recovery strategy aimed at rationalizing its international activities to cut out the weaker activities and build up other operations to the point where they were more prominent than the Australian operations. The program began in 1979 with the sale of the U.S. trucking company Acme Fast Freight, which had lost money every year since being acquired in 1973. The group also cut a loss-making stake in Nigerian Shipping Operations from 100 percent to 25 percent. By 1980, the company projected, more than half of its profits would for the first time be earned outside Australia. These projections were overshadowed later in 1979, when a new takeover battle for Ansett Transport Industries Limited began. With Sir Henry Bolte gone and a more liberalized corporate climate in Australia, two groups, Ampol Petroleum and Bell Resources, began buying Ansett shares heavily. TNT entered the battle, which also involved Rupert Murdoch’s The News Corporation Limited. Just as the latter emerged as the likely victor, it suddenly became clear that TNT’s stake was large enough to prevent Murdoch’s company from taking control. The two companies agreed to share control of Ansett, with 50 percent each. Ansett’s operations included a major Australian domestic airline, Ansett Australia, as well as freight services and tourist resort operations.

The cash flow provided by its share of Ansett gave TNT renewed strength to pursue its international expansion plans. The company changed its international focus to concentrate on the United Kingdom and Europe as its most important growth area. This focus became clear in October 1980 when, sponsored by the British merchant bank Hambros, TNT was listed on the London Stock Exchange, after removing itself from the Toronto and Vancouver exchanges earlier in the year. TNT was now well placed to expand into Europe, although it continued to look for openings in the United States, buying another trucking and warehousing company, Pilot Freight Carriers, while Trans Freight Lines doubled its size by buying another container line, Seatrain International.

The impact TNT’s services were having in its new markets was indicated in 1982 in a confidential U.K. Post Office report that stated that a new TNT private parcel delivery service, Homefast, would pose a serious threat to the Royal Mail parcels network. TNT took a significant step toward building a European freight network in 1983 when it bought Skypak, IPEC Holdings Ltd.’s international courier operations, which operated in 26 countries. Combined with TNT’s existing courier networks, this gave the group bases in 49 countries and provided access to Middle and Far East markets. Four months after the Skypak acquisition, TNT bought IPEC Europe, the leader in the European international express freight market, complete with more than 60 purpose-built terminals and 600 radio-equipped vehicles.

With its Ansett stake and its growing international business, TNT itself became a prime candidate for takeover in the early 1980s. One of Australia’s most skilled takeover operators, Robert Holmes a Court, stalked TNT through 1981 and 1982 but was held off, although at one stage Ansett and another of TNT’s associates, Mcllwraith McEachern Limited, were called upon to pay more than A $60 million for a strategic stake in TNT to protect it from predators.

The vulnerability of a widespread transport group to the cyclical movements of economies became clear again when the company’s profits plunged by half in 1982 to 1983. A recession in Australia had severely cut freight volumes, while in other markets competition had forced TNT to reduce its rates and thus its profit margin. TNT continued to pour money into expansion, however, opening a steady stream of operations and services in the United Kingdom, where it was a pioneer in the area of overnight delivery service, as it had been in Australia, and constantly looking out for new acquisition or expansion opportunities in Europe. In view of its international emphasis, the company changed its name in 1985 from Thomas Nationwide Transport Limited to simply TNT Limited (TNT).

A key event for TNT’s European operation occurred in 1986 and came in large part by virtue of the close relationship that had developed between Abeles and Rupert Murdoch since the Ansett takeover. When Murdoch planned to move his British national newspapers in London from Fleet Street to a new plant in Wapping, in the face of fierce resistance from the printing unions, he also anticipated problems from the unions at British Rail, which distributed all of his publications nationwide. Murdoch, therefore, worked closely with TNT, whose U.K. manager, Alan Jones, built up a fleet of trucks in the weeks leading up to the transfer to Wapping. The weekend before the move, Jones hired 550 drivers, and when Wapping began operating, TNT’s trucks rolled through the gates and the picket lines. For TNT the effort paid off, as the company was awarded the contract to distribute all of Murdoch’s British papers, providing a massive boost to the company’s U.K. operation. The plan also marked the end of British Rail’s dominance of the newspaper distribution market, as more publishers followed Murdoch’s lead and switched to road distribution.

Emerged as Leading Diversified Transport Group by 1987

In the late 1980s TNT emerged from a period that could have damaged a company with a different approach. Faced with a recession and exposed in a number of geographical areas, TNT under Abeles spent heavily on expansion and outlasted the problems. The company was particularly well positioned in the £500 million-a-year European express delivery market, which was growing at 50 percent a year. The emphasis on Europe was shown by the fact that the company’s European turnover grew by an average of almost 50 percent a year from when the U.K. office was opened in 1972 to 1987. By 1987 TNT had become the world’s largest diversified transportation group, with operations in 105 countries. Abeles indicated that the company was moving into a new phase when he said in the Sunday Times, June 28, 1987, “The growing pains of setting up and consolidating into a truly worldwide transportation group are coming to an end.”

From its wider base, TNT began a new series of developments aimed at furthering its reach in its existing markets, particularly in Europe. In 1987 the company sold its last shares in the U.S. shipping company Trans Freight Lines, which had been unsuccessful in its attempt to penetrate the tight North Atlantic shipping business and had lost a net A $80 million since 1976. TNT also unloaded another big loss-making U.S. operation, the trucking business TNT Pilot, which had lost more than A $60 million since 1980. In 1987 TNT made one of its biggest investments when it negotiated a right of first refusal of five years’ production of British Aerospace’s new BAe 146 Quiet Trader freight aircraft, worth an estimated total of about £1 billion, and used the first 18 planes to establish a trans-European air express freight network servicing 17 countries.

TNT also pushed toward the goal of running a new freight airline in Europe. In 1988 it merged its European express freight division with that of its biggest competitor, Scandinavian Airline System’s Air de Cologne, and bought a 75 percent stake in the leading Spanish domestic freight carrier, Unitransa. It also bought KLM Airlines’ parcel express business, XP, and linked its air freight business in Europe with its road operations, creating a formidable new network, TNT Express Europe. By mid-1989 the European operations accounted for 35 percent of TNT’s total worldwide assets, double the proportion of just two years before. Abeles’s eyes were clearly fixed on the coming of the single European market in 1992, and his strategy of dominating the highly segmented European freight industry by offering a comprehensive range of services between and within all European countries appeared to be working.

The late 1980s also marked TNT’s extension into Eastern Europe, just in time for the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989 and 1990. The company formed a joint venture with the Hungarian airline Malev in 1988, created TNT Aeroflot—a joint venture with Russia’s Aeroflot—in 1989, and started a joint venture with Yugoslavia’s airline JAT in 1990. As other countries in the region became liberalized, TNT moved toward similar operations throughout Eastern Europe. It also expanded in Southeast Asia, investing in joint ventures with the Philippine Aerospace Development Corporation to develop the Philippines as a regional hub.

Troubled Period Began in 1989

From late 1989, however, TNT encountered a series of serious problems. The problems began in August 1989 when Australia’s domestic airline pilots resigned en masse as part of a campaign to secure a 29.7 percent salary increase that was outside the government’s six percent wages accord and centralized system. Accordingly, the pilots’ union’s industrial awards were cancelled by the Industrial Relations Commission. The four airlines, namely Ansett Airlines, East-West Airlines, government-owned Australian Airlines, and IPEC Aviation, slowly rebuilt their airlines by employing pilots on individual contracts. This took several months and was completed by March 1990. The number of pilots reemployed was significantly lower than prior to the dispute. The dispute, which lasted for months, ended in favor of the airlines, but caused serious damage to the airlines’ revenue. At the height of the dispute, Ansett was estimated to be losing A $10 million a week. TNT’s profits for the September quarter of 1989 were 70 percent lower than for the same period a year before.

The damage subsided after the dispute, but hopes for a return to profit growth disappeared in 1990, when Australia, the United Kingdom, and North America fell into recession. As usual, the economic downturn hit the transport industry hard, and TNT’s broad exposure in these regions left it open to a severe drop in revenue. This problem was compounded in Australia in November 1990, when the federal government deregulated the domestic airline industry and ended the two-airline agreement that had protected Ansett’s share of the air market for so long. Compass Airlines, a new company headed by a former Ansett employee, entered the market and began offering big fare reductions, forcing Ansett Australia, East-West Airlines, and Australian Airlines to introduce fare discounts of up to 61 percent, further slashing revenue.

These problems—along with debt totaling A $2.2 billion—caused a surge of concern in financial markets about TNT’s capacity to generate liquidity in tough times. In January 1991 the company’s share price on the Australian Stock Exchange fell to a record low of A 75¢. Because of the unfavorable market conditions, the company decided not to issue A $200 million of preference shares, issuing later, in April 1991, 50 million new ordinary shares of A 50¢ at a premium of A $1.00 to ease its liquidity problems. The hardest blow came when TNT revealed that it had lost nearly A $197 million for the fiscal year ending in June 1991.

TNT Focused on Core Areas in the 1990s

TNT’s board responded to this crisis with a reassessment of the company’s growth strategy. The company simplified its structure by focusing on three core areas: international express delivery, domestic express delivery, and TNT’s contract business with major manufacturers for the delivery of goods in certain sectors, such as automotive parts. Assets not fitting into these core areas became candidates for divestment. One of the first such selloffs came in March 1992 when TNT spun off its U.S. regional motor carriers into TNT Freightways (renamed USFreightways in February 1996). The initial public offering of 75 percent of the new company’s stock raised US $280.3 million and left TNT with a 25 percent stake. Also in March 1992 TNT completed the acquisition of Chronoservice, a leading French express carrier, which filled a gap in the company’s network of domestic express businesses in Europe. TNT reached an agreement with rival Federal Express whereby it would subcontract the delivery of inbound FedEx packages to ten European countries, a deal consummated that same month. Later in 1992 came the establishment of GD Express Worldwide (GDEW)—which allowed TNT to remove A $600 million in long-term debt from its balance sheet—and the start of the TNT-PTT Post relationship. An era also came to an end in 1992 when the colorful and autocratic Abeles stepped aside as managing director, replaced by the lower-key David Mortimer.

Abeles remained on the TNT board but only until September 1993 when he and four other directors resigned following a boardroom disagreement over how to handle the company’s troubled balance sheet. Debt had been reduced to A $1.12 billion, but TNT posted losses of A $195.4 million for fiscal 1992 and A $256.7 million (US $171.1 million) for fiscal 1993. With A $400 million in debt due for repayment in both fiscal 1994 and 1995, the company was forced to step up its divestment program. In 1994 TNT sold the bulk of its shipping and development division for about A $125 million (US $89 million). Also divested was a car auctioning service in Australia. For fiscal 1994 TNT posted a profit of A $105.1 million (US $78 million), in large part because of a turnaround in Ansett Airlines and reduced losses at GDEW, which had been suffering the effects of aggressive competition.

KPN Acquired TNT in December 1996

In September 1996 TNT continued to narrow its interests when it sold its 50 percent interest in Ansett to Air New Zealand for A $475 million. Three months later Koninklijke PTT Neder-land (KPN) completed a friendly A $2 billion (US $1.58 billion) takeover of TNT, in one of the largest mergers in Dutch history. KPN also gained full control of GDEW as the other postal service partners in the venture sold out. The combination of PTT Post and TNT created the most extensive express mail network in Europe and one of the world’s four largest time-sensitive distribution and logistics groups (along with United Parcel Service, FedEx, and DHL). TNT activities related to mail, express, and logistics were integrated into PTT Post. Other TNT assets—including freight, shipping, and aircraft leasing—were soon sold off.

The combined PTT Post/TNT operations now generated about half of KPN’s total revenue, compared with one-third before the acquisition of TNT. But on June 29, 1998, TNT Post Group N.V. (TPG)—the mail, express, and logistics operations of KPN—were demerged from KPN and listed independently on the stock exchanges of Amsterdam, New York, London, and Frankfurt. KPN shareholders received one share of TPG stock for each KPN share they held. The Dutch government held a 44 percent stake in TPG at the outset. Given that the company included the national postal service of the country—an entity of vital importance—the government retained the special right to approve resolutions that would fundamentally alter the group structure of TPG and could increase its stake to a controlling 51 percent in certain circumstances “only to safeguard the general interest.” The government confirmed its intention not to reduce its stake below one-third before 2004. In addition, the government had the right to appoint three of the nine members of the TPG supervisory board. Ad J. Scheepbouwer was named chairman of the board of management.

The culmination of PTT Post’s Briefpost 2000 initiative came in November 1998 with the opening of six new sorting centers, which replaced the 12 mail interchange centers that had been used to sort mail. The state-of-the-art sorting machines not only greatly increased the percentage of automatically sorted mail, but also led to cost savings from the elimination of 4,500 jobs. Most of the people who lost their jobs were transferred to other positions within TPG. In any event, the completion of Briefpost 2000 provided a solid beginning for the newly independent company, which appeared—based on its long history of innovation, daring, and forward-thinking—to be well positioned to thrive in the increasingly competitive environment of the early 21st century, when European postal services’ monopoly on letter delivery was expected to be removed.

Principal Operating Units

PTT Post (including Letters, Parcel Service, International & Consumer, Media Service, Document Handling, and Post Offices [50%]); TNT (including International Mail, TNT International Express, TNT South Europe [Italy/France/Spain], TNT Benelux, TNT United Kingdom, TNT Germany, TNT North America, and TNT Australia/Asia).

Further Reading

Brady, Diane, “Delivery Giants Race to Provide Overnight Service to Asian Cities,” Wall Street Journal, August 7, 1995, p. B6A.

Brown, Kevin, “Takeover Drive Puts TNT on Road to Profit,” Financial Times, March 25, 1992, p. 26.

Cramb, Gordon, “Offer Values TPG at Fl 22bn,” Financial Times, June 29, 1998, p. 28.

_____, “TNT Post Group Tops Forecast at Halfway,” Financial Times, September 1, 1998, p. 17.

Cramb, Gordon, and Nikki Tait,“Wrapping Up the Old with the New,” Financial Times, October 3, 1996, p. 28.

du Bois, Martin, “KPN Grows To Challenge Delivery Giants,” Wall Street Journal, December 17, 1996, p. A6.

“Dutch Government Set To Divest Control of KPN,” Privatisation International, October 1995, pp. 1 +.

Milbank, Dana, “Dutch Service Hopes To Deliver World’s Mail,” Wall Street Journal, July 28, 1994, pp. Bl, B6.

Murdoch, Adrian, “Postman Pat He Ain’t,” CA Magazine (Scotland), August 1998, pp. 34 +.

Salomon, Alan, “Delivering a Market Battle: Courier Wars Darken Skies Over Europe, Asia as FedEx, TNT, DHL Battle for Domination,” Advertising Age, July 17, 1995, p. 1-18.

Tait, Nikki, “TNT Losses Mount as Directors Quit,” Financial Times, September 9, 1993, p. 34.

_____, “TNT Sells Shipping Businesses,” Financial Times, February 23, 1994, p. 31.

“TNT Sale May Signal Industry Trend,” Logistics Management, January 1997, p. 26.

van de Krol, Ronald, “KPN Floats into Land of the Giants,” Financial Times, July 21, 1993, p. 23.

Witcher, S. Karene, “Sir Peter’s Reign Dismays TNT Critics,” Wall Street Journal, August 28, 1991, p. A4.

Witcher, S. Karene, and Martin du Bois, “Dutch Telecommunications Firm KPN Offers $1.58 Billion for Australia’s TNT,” Wall Street Journal, October 3, 1996, p. A9.

—Richard Brass

—updated by David E. Salamie