Air Mail

[Ringy Rose]

3 minutes ago, woolley said:

Exceptional, non-repeatable pandemic factors involved though

So they say.

In fairness there will be some truth in that, but even before that the Group was pulling in £200m.

This year they reckon Royal Mail letters division lost over a billion quid due to “impairment charges”, but curiously the wider Group only made an operating loss of £70m despite that. I call shenanigans.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britains-royal-mail-posts-losses-419-mln-pounds-2023-05-18/

 

[woolley]

3 minutes ago, Banker said:

Letter deliveries have been loss making for years, when you’ve got to deliver to outer Hebrides for same price as local delivery then it’s obvious, also Saturday letter deliveries, outdated union practices etc etc

That really is the thing. There has to be a review of what is an appropriate service to provide in an age where letters have largely lost their status. If junk mail was banned what would be left? And in general I don't have a problem with public ownership. It's a great principle so long as it's run on commercial lines rather than for the convenience of those on the inside having a beano on taxpayers' money. The problem is that the unions have you by the short and curlies more than in any commercial situation.

[woolley]

3 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

So they say.

In fairness there will be some truth in that, but even before that the Group was pulling in £200m.

This year they reckon Royal Mail letters division lost over a billion quid due to “impairment charges”, but curiously the wider Group only made an operating loss of £70m despite that. I call shenanigans.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britains-royal-mail-posts-losses-419-mln-pounds-2023-05-18/

 

A lot of that impairment caused by loss of business and loss of confidence in the company due to 18 days of strikes, of course. Customers find alternatives and don't necessarily come back in the real world.

I don't pretend to know what the answer is for Royal Mail as a business, I know I wouldn't buy shares in it, for sure, but the unions should realise that actions have consequences for their members. I understand the issues re terms and conditions of their employment, but if the business is struggling (and letter volumes were down by a massive third in 5 years) then I'm pretty sure that multiple strikes are not going to help in their aims. Crass management too on their outrageous bonuses!

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1006816/royal-mail-volume-of-parcels-and-letters-delivered-uk/

[Major Rushen]

8 hours ago, NoTailT said:

The major implications I foresee

1) Jobs, WestAtlantic maintenance facility.

2) Some CI businesses highlighted in the article, but we have numerous distribution businesses based here that are B2C. Especially in the Balthane. This could be problematic.

West Atlantic Maintenance closed months ago.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Major Rushen

[AcousticallyChallenged]

9 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

There are a number of reports from very reliable sources that the new sorting machine is not all it was cracked up to be. As in, it takes as many people to staff it as were previously employed in manually sorting (to wit, 10 including one who has to man a prodding stick to free stuck parcels), it won't sort about 1/3rd of parcels that it can't read the addresses on and lots of proven, established delivery practices have had to be altered to accommodate its "shortcomings", the main fallout of which is slower deliveries to the areas outlying Douglas (because naturally, no criticism can dare be directed at the new machine).

All this from a source within the P.O....

Anecdotally, things have been sitting as out for delivery for days before actually turning up recently.

The postie has been hours later than usual too.

But then, some things do rock up next day unexpectedly too. 

[AcousticallyChallenged]

40 minutes ago, A fool and his money..... said:

I'm surprised Stu Peters hasn't sorted this one out, quietly and without any fuss before the public were aware of it.

Then again, actually I'm not. I think, especially in the case of politicians, it's important to judge someone by what they do, rather than what they say they do.

Are stu wont stand for this nonsense hell fly the plane if he has to!!!!

[Ringy Rose]

39 minutes ago, woolley said:

A lot of that impairment caused by loss of business and loss of confidence in the company due to 18 days of strikes, of course. Customers find alternatives and don't necessarily come back in the real world.

That wouldn’t be accounted for as an impairment though, reduced income would simply show in the operating loss/profit.

The Group’s overall operating loss was about £70m. But they’ve carved out the parcels and the letters into separate businesses, claiming the letters division made an operating loss of £470m (and £100m of that was redundancy charges!) but the parcels made an operating profit of £400m. Plenty of scope for shenanigans there if you needed one business to show a nice big fat loss and one business- perhaps one you are considering carving out completely- to show a nice big fat profit. Happens all the time- Starbucks UK never makes a profit due to fees payable to Starbucks Luxembourg.

Of course the Group will now be pushing for taxpayer cash to keep the “loss making” business going.

The impairment charge was about £550m. The description of that starts with a B ends in ollocks.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Ringy Rose

[Stu Peters]

10 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

If only someone could have foreseen this happening.  I wonder if the Chairman of the Post Office @Stu Peters would like to comment.

This is the sort of nonsense that we see continuously in Isle of Man Government.  Some high-up manager see a piece of kit they fancy and then makes up a flimsy case why it is 'needed' or just buys it anyway.  Rather than analysing what the actual requirements of the organisation are and then investigating what solutions would best fit them and costing out if it is worth making the change.

Teething problems, not unusual with new kit.

[offshoremanxman]

3 minutes ago, Stu Peters said:

Teething problems, not unusual with new kit.

What they really need Stu is one of those big V8 analogue sorting machines from 1985. The wokes just can’t cut it with this new kit. 

[Stu Peters]

Just now, offshoremanxman said:

What they really need Stu is one of those big V8 analogue sorting machines from 1985. The wokes just can’t cut it with this new kit. 

Big coal fired steam engine with street urchins sweeping the chimbleys. More brick, less aluminium. But nobody listens to me…

[De nada]

7 minutes ago, Stu Peters said:

 But nobody listens to me…

Thank fuck...

😉

[offshoremanxman]

5 minutes ago, De nada said:

Thank fuck...

😉

You’re right. But. I was thinking about this before and of all the shysters and dreamers who have posted on here over the years. Stu is almost the only one who then stood and got in. Plenty have stood and got nowhere. And he still takes an enormous amount of shit on here when in reality he’s probably MFs most successful poster when it comes to actually getting into a political position. 

[NoTailT]

3 hours ago, Major Rushen said:

West Atlantic Maintenance closed months ago.

Did it???

[woolley]

4 hours ago, Ringy Rose said:

That wouldn’t be accounted for as an impairment though, reduced income would simply show in the operating loss/profit.

The Group’s overall operating loss was about £70m. But they’ve carved out the parcels and the letters into separate businesses, claiming the letters division made an operating loss of £470m (and £100m of that was redundancy charges!) but the parcels made an operating profit of £400m. Plenty of scope for shenanigans there if you needed one business to show a nice big fat loss and one business- perhaps one you are considering carving out completely- to show a nice big fat profit. Happens all the time- Starbucks UK never makes a profit due to fees payable to Starbucks Luxembourg.

Of course the Group will now be pushing for taxpayer cash to keep the “loss making” business going.

The impairment charge was about £550m. The description of that starts with a B ends in ollocks.

Yes. A reduction in income would be shown in the profit and loss, but it's naive to suppose that this has nothing to do with the impairment, which after all is a diminution in the value of the business. If investors see that the company has lost a fifth of the working days in a year due to strikes with all of the other clouds hanging over the mail service then it's hardly pointing to a rosy future and this is a prime cause of a loss in value. And who is enjoying this bonanza? It certainly isn't the company's shareholders, because the share price is down from £5.50 to £2.08 in 2 years. Hardly indicative of a beanfeast. I know all about base erosion and profit shifting (which should be internationally outlawed, by the way), but first you have to make a profit. The share price movement does not seem to be indicative of such a prospect anytime soon.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, A fool and his money..... said:

I'm surprised Stu Peters hasn't sorted this one out, quietly and without any fuss before the public were aware of it.

Then again, actually I'm not. I think, especially in the case of politicians, it's important to judge someone by what they do, rather than what they say they do.

He thinks they’re providing a great service and are well run. He’s stated that previously on here. Despite them throwing tens of thousands down the drain by allowing staff to abuse the vans to such a degree in their last auctioning off, late last year, they ALL went for at least £5k under book value! Well managed - not!