Who is going to buy Post Office shares?

[Dakkon]

As the title suggests, with confirmation today that it will be floated in the coming months, a potential good buy or not?

[The Leaper]

The Post Office: nobody, they are not been offered. It's Royal Mail.

R

[CRB14]

Nah. I see stiff competition from elsewhere (TNT etc) that don't appear to have as many strikes and all that jazz that accompanies the Royal Mail.

I haven't read much into the IPO but I'm really put off just by the Royal Mail name and brand. Too political for my liking.

[bad company]

How can anybody answer the question before we know the prices etc?

[bogie]

wonder if they will be doing the annual shareholders report early and we can see how the CEO is now on 1 million quid instead of £200k and all his management team are on £500k

isn't that what usually happens....all the top knobs cream off millions whilst making cutbacks of the service

[davepoth]

Royal Mail is quite a big takeover target. Consolidation is in the air in the market - UPS and TNT tried to tie up at the beginning of the year but the EU didn't like it, and I think it was because competition would be reduced over the whole EU. Since Royal Mail is in a slightly different market and is geographically limited, a takeover would get through with less trouble.

On that basis alone and on the assumption that the share issue is at a keen price for private citizens, it's probably a good deal. Added to that the Royal Mail is actually turning a profit so is reasonably healthy in its own right.

[BoRED S2upid]

If its anything like British gas it will be a good one to get into early.

I'm wondering what the offer is like for employees as the brother in law is a postie.

[TGAoW]

Do what this bloke says....

http://moneyweek.com/right-side-ten-reasons-agains...

[kev1974]

Not me, letter post is on the way out, nearly every bill has an email/online option these days, and that trend will not reverse at the prices RM now charge for letters.

Leaving parcel post, and all it will take is someone else with a lot of convenient locations like Tesco to get organised into offering some sort of Collect+ service open to all senders not just selected ones, and the parcel trade will start to decline for RM too. The problem is they've already sold off so many of their well located properties that used to be central sorting offices etc.

[GrizzlyBear]

15 years ago I was regularly using Royal Mail. Now I hardly use it at all; other than for Birthday cards etc so I am thinking what am I actually buying here, what other services are they going to offer and where is growth going to come from? Will have a look when details come out, but I am struggling to see long term growth etc.

[megaphone]

GrizzlyBear said:

15 years ago I was regularly using Royal Mail. Now I hardly use it at all; other than for Birthday cards etc so I am thinking what am I actually buying here, what other services are they going to offer and where is growth going to come from? Will have a look when details come out, but I am struggling to see long term growth etc.

Parcels, loads of them, think about all the ebay transactions that are sent out through RM. They are making big profits from it, parcel post is expensive now.