Austrian post

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Former corporate headquarters of Österreichische Post AG in Vienna-Landstrasse
Mailbox (2005)

The Austrian Post Aktiengesellschaft was made legally independent in 1999 and is among the Commercial Register registered 180219d Vienna Commercial Court logistics and postal companies . Österreichische Post Aktiengesellschaft is the indirect legal successor of the “Yellow Post” and “Postautodienst” branches of the former Austrian Post and Telegraph Administration . These branches of business were created on May 1, 1996 when the Austrian Post and Telegraph Administration was split into the so-called Yellow Post and Telekom Austria . In 2000, the Postbus service was spun off from the parent company and Post AG has since concentrated on its core business. From mid-2004, the privatization of Österreichische Post Aktiengesellschaft was discussed and subsequently carried out. On May 15, 2006, the sale of 41.3 million shares in Österreichische Post AG began at an issue price of € 19. The shares have been listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange for the first time since May 31, 2006 . Post AG is 52.9% owned by the state-owned Österreichische Bundes- und Industriebeteiligungen GmbH , the rest is largely free float .

history

The history of Österreichische Post AG begins with the development of the postal system in Austria, which is described in detail in the article Austrian postal history up to 1806 .

In 1490, King Maximilian I established the first permanent postal connection in Europe. The Dutch postal course connected Innsbruck with the Netherlands and Italy. In 1722, Emperor Karl VI. the post became a state monopoly , a little later under Maria Theresa and Josef II the postal service began with regular mail coaches . As early as 1787, the postmaster Johann Georg Khumer introduced the postmark (place and day stamp , also known as "OT stamp").

With the reorganization of the postage payment system in 1817, the mailboxes were also set up in the same year . The first Austrian postage stamp did not appear until 33 years later. In 1863, guidelines for the conclusion of international postal treaties were adopted at an international postal conference in Paris, eleven years before the Universal Postal Union was founded . The first postcards (so-called "correspondence cards") were sent out from 1869 .

From 1875 to 1956, there was a pneumatic tube in Vienna . In the final stage, this connected a total of 53 pneumatic tube stations over a total length of 82.5 kilometers. The first telephone network was put into operation in 1881.

In the middle of the First World War, the first house letterboxes were built in Austria in 1916 and two years later the world's first civil air mail service.

In 1966 the Austrian postal code system was established. The first mobile phone network in Austria followed eight years later . In the mid-1990s, Austrian Post introduced the so-called EMS (“Express Mail Service”), ie the priority dispatch of letters and parcels.

A first step towards the later legal independence of the Austrian postal system was the establishment of Post and Telekom Austria (PTA) from the former Austrian Post and Telegraph Administration in 1996 , which was followed two years later by the spin-off of Telekom Austria. In 1999, the post was finally made legally independent as Österreichische Post AG .

Two years later, the postbus service branch was spun off to what was then ÖIAG and a 74.9% stake in feibra Austria was acquired . In 2002, what was then Europe's largest mail distribution center in Vienna-Inzersdorf was put into operation and the Slovak parcel companies Slovak Parcel Service (SPS) and In-Time were taken over, followed by the Croatian company Overseas Trade a year later .

In 2004 the Austrian Post sold the postal insurance and a year later also its shares in the DPD parcel services in preparation for the entry into the Austrian B2B parcel market. From 2004, Swiss Post will also be leading the Post partners. These partially cover the range of services offered by the Post and are increasingly being used as a replacement for post offices that are no longer economical for the Post but where locations must be maintained in accordance with the Post Market Act.

Several takeovers and acquisitions followed. Feibra Hungary was added in 2005 and the share in Feibra Austria was increased to 100%.

A year later, the Post took over the Slovak advertising mail order company Kolos , the Vienna district newspaper and the German trans-o-flex (B2B parcel & logistics).

This was followed in 2007 by the takeovers of Weber Escal (Croatia) / advertising mailings , Scanpoint (Germany) / scanning services, Road Parcel and Merland Expressz (Hungary) / parcel shipping, Scherübl (Austria) / pharmaceutical logistics and the acquisition of the German direct marketing specialist meiller direct with headquarters in Schwandorf in Bavaria as well as from ST-Media (Croatia) / advertising mail and City Express (Serbia) / parcel shipping.

In 2008 DDS (Netherlands) / Paketversand , VOP (Belgium) / Paketversand , the Belgian HSH Group and the Bosnian parcel service 24VIP (now "ExpressOne) were added. The company also has a majority stake in the Bulgarian M&BM / Letter Delivery / Parcel Shipping / Hybrid mail, as well as minority stakes in the Turkish ARAS / Paketversand and the Czech Intime / Paketversand.

In 2006 the company went public on the Vienna Stock Exchange with a 49% free float . In the same year, Swiss Post set up the Post24 service , which has fully automatic stations for collecting and returning parcels in Vienna at any time of the day or night.

After Hermes was able to win several mail-order companies as customers in 2007, business developed unfavorably for both the Post and Hermes and Hermes has therefore had its parcels delivered through the Post since June.

In spring 2017, Swiss Post started the “e-letter” and is trying to replace e-mail and physical invoices on the market . It highlights the advantages (e.g. a letterbox everywhere, more secure than e-mail, verifiable access) and sends potential customers the access data without being asked. According to the company, there were almost 90,000 activations by mid-May 2017.

Traditionally, the Post and Telegraph Administration provided banking services for the Österreichische Postsparkasse (PSK). This cooperation was continued after the conversion of the postal and telegraph administration into a stock corporation and after the sale of the postal savings bank to BAWAG and the merger of these banks. In 2017 it was announced that BAWAG PSK had terminated the cooperation agreement. After the termination, BAWAG PSK's banking services will only be offered in Swiss Post branches until March 31, 2020. On April 8, 2019, Swiss Post announced that it would acquire 80% of Brüll Kallmus Bank from Grazer Wechselseiten (GraWe) . This bank was renamed Bank 99 and is a new partner of Austrian Post for the area of ​​financial services. From April 1, 2020, banking services for Bank 99 will be offered in the Post branches.

On June 11, 2019, the " Crypto Stamp " was presented, the world's first blockchain stamp. The 150,000 copies with a face value of 6.90 euros were sold out in a short time.

Economic development

Austrian Post AG (according to IFRS ) 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Sales in € million 1565.2 1571.7 1585.2 1654.4 1701.6 1736.7 2315.7 2441.4 2356.9 2351.1 2348.7 2366.1 2366.8 2363.5 2401.9 2030.5 1938.9 1958.5 2021.6
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in € million 109.4 101.6 157.7 203.1 223.8 231.7 292.7 321.7 269.2 262.1 281.9 271.2 304.5 333.8 302.7 277.1 294.6 305.4 318.7
Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) in € million 15.1 4.1 28.1 82.2 103.0 123.3 162.8 169.5 149.4 156.9 167.5 182.4 186.0 196.9 89.0 202.3 207.8 210.9 200.6
Earnings before taxes (EBT) in € million 6.1 −6.6 25.6 76.7 100.9 130.5 164.9 158.2 124.8 148.7 162.3 151.6 171.2 194.0 91.0 201.5 220.6 197.8 211.3
Profit for the period in € million 17.5 −2.5 16.9 50.0 99.9 99.8 122.6 118.9 79.7 118.4 123.2 123.2 124.0 146.8 71.6 152.7 165.0 144.2 144.5
Operating free cash flow before acquisitions / securities in € million k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. 168.2 193.0 182.8 156.4 151.4 172.1 153.9 158.5 160.5 156.8 171.4 161.9 148.4
Balance sheet total in € million 1601.7 1631.8 1617.9 1795.7 1563.0 1901.6 2058.6 1874.6 1775.3 1715.1 1668.3 1694.6 1640.2 1671.0 1613.0 1541.8 1674.2 1681.2 2042.9
Equity in € m 749.7 718.9 698.9 712.5 762.1 821.4 874.3 741.5 673.7 690.8 702.0 708.6 699.4 702.7 641.7 670.0 698.8 699.1 700.7
Equity ratio in% 46.8 44.1 43.2 39.7 48.8 43.2 42.5 39.6 38.0 40.3 42.1 41.8 42.6 42.1 39.8 43.5 41.7 41.6 34.3
Dividend per share in € k. A. k. A. k. A. 0.57 0.57 1.00 2.40 2.50 1.50 1.60 1.70 1.80 1.90 1.95 1.95 2.00 2.05 2.08 2.08
Total shareholder return since IPO in% k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. 31.5 44.7 31.2 69.1 70.0 120.5 148.8 188.3 163.1 164.2 203.8 175.6 207.5
Employee 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Employees (period average, full-time employees) k. A. 29558 27713 26342 25192 24456 25764 27002 25921 24969 23369 23181 24211 23912 23476 21695 20524 20545 20338
Offices 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Offices k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. 1552 1850 1880 1931 1894 1826 1785 1792 1802 1791 1770
including self-operated branches k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. 1134 733 622 555 535 520 504 454 443 423 415
including Post-Partner branches k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. k. A. 418 1117 1258 1376 1359 1306 1281 1338 1359 1368 1355
Offices 2019

Group structure

Subsidiaries

Österreichische Post AG has national and international holdings in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey and Hungary.

Company name Head office Participation
ACL advanced commerce labs GmbH Austria 070%
ADELHEID / AEP Germany 050.12%
adverserve Holding GmbH Austria 049%
Aras Kargo Turkey 025%
Austrian Post International Germany GmbH Germany 100%
City Express doo Serbia 100%
City Express Montenegro doo Montenegro 100%
D2D - direct to document GmbH Austria 048%
EMD - electronic u. Microfilm Documentation Systems Ges.mbH Austria 100%
EURODIS GmbH Germany 020.80%
Express One doo Bosnia Herzegovina 100%
Express One Hungary Kft. Hungary 100%
feibra GmbH Austria 100%
In time Czech Republic 031.50%
In Time sro Slovakia 100%
M&BM Express OOD Bulgaria 076%
OMNITEC Informationstechnologie-Systemservice GmbH Austria 050%
Overseas Trade doo Croatia 100%
PHS Logistiktechnik GmbH Austria 026%
Post E-Commerce GmbH Austria 100%
Post Real Estate GmbH Austria 100%
Post Systemlogistik GmbH Austria 100%
Post Wertlogistik GmbH Austria 100%
PROWERB company for productive advertising GmbH Austria 100%
Scanpoint GmbH Austria 100%
Scanpoint Slovakia sro Slovakia 100%
sendhybrid ÖPBD GmbH Austria 026%
Slovak Parcel Service sro Slovakia 100%
Weber Escal doo Croatia 100%

Status: April 2018

Corporate governance

Board

  • Georg Pölzl - Chairman of the Board of Management, General Director (CEO)
  • Walter Oblin - Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
  • Peter Umundum - Executive Director

Supervisory board

Sent by the staff representatives to the supervisory board:

  • Helmut Köstinger
  • Martin Palensky
  • Andreas Schieder
  • Manfred Wiedner

Shareholders

proportion of Shareholders
52.9% Austrian Beteiligungs AG
47.2% Free float (18.9% Austria, 10.3% continental Europe (including 2.14% state pension fund (Norway) ), 9.6% UK and Ireland, 8.2% North America, 0.1% others)

criticism

The outsourcing of the Post from the federal budget in 1996 and the ever advancing liberalization prompted the Post to open up new business areas. This also led to address trading. According to the motto “Our addresses are worth more”, the Post founded the no longer existing “Postadress Austria GmbH” together with the private data dealer Schober Suppan Direktmarketing GmbH and entered the address trade.

This fact earned Österreichische Post AG its first prize at the Big Brother Awards Austria in 2001. It also became known that Swiss Post passed on information about its customers (e.g. whether the postal customer still lives at the address or where he has moved, whether the customer regularly empties his mailbox, etc.) to third parties such as debt collection agencies. The post office is also likely to have used its postman as “detectives” to check whether employees on sick leave are actually at home.

In 2003, Österreichische Post AG received its second prize at the Big Brother Awards Austria. Above all, the fact was criticized and known that Swiss Post obtained authorization to forward the information provided in the case of a forwarding order. Without this declaration of consent, forwarding orders were often not accepted, contrary to the Data Protection Act.
The Austrian Data Protection Act stipulates that not granting such an authorization must not have any effect on the contractual relationship. The Post is also obliged to contract, which means that it is nevertheless obliged to accept the forwarding order.

It is also criticized that cash on delivery items are only handed over if the respective customer gives their date and place of birth. Likewise, an attempt is made to find out as much as possible about the customer's household in order to be able to sell the information obtained at a profit.

The Austrian Post was regularly criticized in the ORF “Help” series because of its practice that addresses are used profitably when forwarding orders, especially for the fact that the authorization to pass on data and the option to delete or cancel is written too small and therefore is often overlooked by customers and thus leads to unpleasant surprises. Even if a customer objected to his data being passed on, data was passed on. Swiss Post justified this by stating that, according to the company, 86% of customers would agree to a transfer. The transfer is therefore specified as "normal" in the program. The high percentage does not say anything about how many of the customers have overlooked the cancellation option or may have misunderstood it. For some time, Swiss Post advertised that mail-order companies and the like could also be notified through the data transfer, thus saving the customer work.

At the Big Brother Awards Austria 2008, Swiss Post again received the “lifelong nuisance” award for its handling of customer data in forwarding orders and for the data collection mania for forwarding orders.

In January 2019, the Addendum research platform revealed that, as part of its work as an address publisher, the Post stores the alleged party affinities of 2.2 million Austrians and sells them for election advertising. After it became known, the Austrian data protection authority initiated an investigation against the Post. The Post itself announced that it would delete all information on party affinities from its records. In this context, a non-final first-instance judgment was issued, which the Vorarlberg lawyer Christian Wirthensohn had fought against the Post at the Feldkirch regional court. In this context, it was reported that the Post took action against critics by means of legal injunctions. In October 2019, Swiss Post was awarded the negative Big Brother Award for this .

See also

Web links

Commons : Austrian Post  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Website for the "E-Letter"
  2. ↑ Letter from Swiss Post to potential customers of the “E-Letter” in March 2017
  3. ↑ Post earned 19.3 million in election campaigns last year
  4. ↑ Bawag terminates contract with Swiss Post. October 11, 2017, accessed February 7, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Your partner for banking matters - Post AG. Accessed January 2, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Post starts with its own bank on April 1st. In: ORF.at . January 4, 2020, accessed January 5, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Post takes over 80 percent of the Brüll Kallmus Bank. orf.at, April 8, 2019, accessed April 9, 2019 .
  8. ↑ The bank of the yellow post is called Bank 99. Der Standard, January 23, 2020, accessed on February 7, 2020 .
  9. ^ Crypto stamp - a physical-digital collectible. Retrieved July 9, 2019 .
  10. ↑ ORF at / Agencies red: Post publishes stamp clone “Crypto stamp”. June 11, 2019, accessed July 9, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Sven-Venzke Caprarese: The First Block Chain Stamp in the World and What it Means. July 1, 2019, accessed July 9, 2019 .
  12. ↑ michael.leitner: Crypto Stamp: Up to 10,000 euros for blockchain postage from Swiss Post. Retrieved July 9, 2019 .
  13. ↑ a b Annual Report 2002. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  14. ↑ a b Annual Report 2003. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  15. ↑ a b Annual Report 2004. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  16. ↑ a b Annual Report 2005. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  17. ↑ a b Annual Report 2006. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  18. ↑ a b Annual Report 2007. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  19. ↑ a b Annual Report 2008. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  20. ↑ a b Annual Report 2009. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  21. ↑ a b Annual Report 2010. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  22. ↑ a b Annual Report 2011. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  23. ↑ a b Annual Report 2012. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  24. ↑ a b Annual Report 2013. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  25. ↑ a b Annual Report 2014. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  26. ↑ a b Annual Report 2015. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  27. ↑ a b Annual Report 2016. Accessed July 1, 2017 .
  28. ↑ a b Annual Report 2017. Accessed July 1, 2017 .
  29. ↑ a b c Annual Report 2018. Accessed July 1, 2017 .
  30. ↑ a b Annual Report 2019. Accessed March 14, 2020 .
  31. ↑ Sustainability Report 2009. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  32. ↑ Sustainability Report 2010. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  33. ↑ Sustainability Report 2011. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  34. ↑ Sustainability Report 2012. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  35. ↑ Sustainability Report 2013. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  36. ↑ Sustainability Report 2014. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  37. ↑ Sustainability Report 2015. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  38. ↑ Sustainability Report 2016. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  39. ↑ Sustainability Report 2017. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  40. ↑ Sustainability Report 2018. Accessed January 24, 2018 .
  41. ↑ Sustainability Report 2019. Accessed March 14, 2020 .
  42. ↑ https://www.post.at/footer_ueber_uns_investor_relations_post_aktie_aktionaersstruktur.php
  43. ↑ https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/holdings/holdings-as-at-31.12.2017/?fullsize=true
  44. ↑ Post employee magazine «inform» No. 4/2001, pages 4 and 5: "Our addresses are worth more"
  45. ↑ Big Brother Awards Austria: The winners of 2001
  46. ↑ Big Brother Awards Austria: The winners of 2003
  47. ↑ Arge Daten: No data protection for recipients of cash on delivery items?
  48. ↑ Arge Daten: Post as a sex mediator
  49. ↑ ORF Ö1 Help: Forwarding order leads to data forwarding
  50. ^ ORF Ö1 Help: data processing from forwarding orders
  51. ↑ Big Brother Awards Austria: The winners of 2008
  52. ↑ When the Post takes sides - addendum.org. January 7, 2019, accessed January 11, 2019 .
  53. ↑ Michael Mayrhofer, Markus "Fin" Hametner, Dieter Zirnig, Monika Müller: Data protection authority initiates proceedings against the post. In: Addendum. Addendum, January 9, 2019, accessed January 11, 2019 .
  54. ↑ Michael Mayrhofer: Post-Daten: Surprising judgment after an action for damages. In: Addendum. Addendum, August 16, 2019, accessed August 19, 2019 .
  55. ^ Sarah Spiekermann : When professors are silenced. In: The Standard. derstandard.at, August 28, 2019, accessed on August 28, 2019 .
  56. ^ After a critical contribution: WU professor von Post "silenced"? In: Small newspaper . August 29, 2019. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
  57. ^ Economy: Jö and Post received Big Brother Awards. In: ORF.at . October 25, 2019, accessed October 26, 2019 .
  58. ↑ Data collection madness: Jö Bonusclub receives negative Big Brother Award. In: DerStandard.at . October 25, 2019, accessed October 26, 2019 .