For Deutsche Post, 2023 marks the end of an era – and the record share price of recent years. Immediately before the change of management at the top from Frank Appel, who has been in office since February 2008, to Tobias Meyer, the Bonn-based group reported significant declines in sales and profits on Wednesday. The logistics giant, which has been boosted for years by a special boom in online retail during the Corona pandemic, has to pay tribute to the gloomy consumer sentiment and the economic consequences of the Ukraine war: In the first quarter, sales shrank by 7.5 percent to 20.9 billion euros. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) fell by as much as 24 percent to EUR 1.6 billion. "As expected, we felt the slowdown in growth momentum and the normalization of the freight markets," said CFO Melanie Kreis. The Bonn-based group reaffirmed its forecasts for 2023 and 2025.
Appel is turning his back on Swiss Post from Thursday. At the Annual General Meeting that will then take place, he will hand over his office to Tobias Meyer, Member of the Board of Management of Swiss Post. Appel, who has also been Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom since April 2022, has shaped Swiss Post and, among other things, driven forward internationalization. The former McKinsey consultant joined the Bonn-based company in 2000. In 2002 he became a member of the Executive Board, and in 2008 he moved up to the post of Chief Executive Officer. In the meantime, Swiss Post writes the lion's share of its profits outside the German home market. Appel has thus made it independent of the shrinking German mail business. He is handing over the responsibility to good hands, Appel explained. "I've always said: I want a successor who is either better or different than me. Tobias Meyer is both."
Here you can read the big F.A.Z. interview with Frank Appel on his farewell.
Inflation dampens consumption and e-commerce
Meyer now has a lot of work to do, also in view of the economic development – after all, he has to lead the company through a phase of economic uncertainty. U.S. competitor UPS had also lost ground in the first quarter. Sales fell by six percent, operating income by as much as 21.8 percent. Meyer will also have to decide whether Swiss Post will target Deutsche Bahn's logistics subsidiary Schenker, should it come onto the market.
In the first quarter, Swiss Post felt the effects of the slowdown in economic development, especially in its freight division, which had been booming for years, and in the parcel business. "In air freight, the decline in volumes was particularly noticeable on trade routes between Asia and the USA and between Asia and Europe – in sea freight, especially due to the decline on trade routes coming from China," said CFO Kreis. "At the same time, inflation has dampened consumption and slowed down e-commerce." In the German mail and parcel business, Swiss Post also recorded declines due to the wage dispute with the Verdi trade union.