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- Notes to the statistics box in the centre of this article from The Times: http://twitpic.com/dzy5z2
- also here: http://image-store.slidesharecdn.com/7dd9feb0-b8ba-11e3-ba72-22000a98b2af-large.jpeg
- Article title: "Royal Mail facing backlash over 'lost £1bn' from sell-off"
- Statistics box:
- +---------------------------------------------------------+
- | Cash and carry |
- +---------------------------------------------------------+
- | Comparable UK parcels |
- | Service * Weight Royal Mail Rival Saving |
- | price price |
- | 2-3 day 2kg £9.10 Hermes £3.78 59% |
- | Next day 5kg £16.95 CityLink £10.79 36% |
- | Next day 20kg £34.50 CityLink £10.79 69% |
- +---------------------------------------------------------+
- ============================================================
- Prices from Royal Mail's Price Finder
- http://www.royalmail.com/price-finder
- Small parcels: 45cm x 35cm x 8cm
- or: 35cm x 25cm x 16cm
- or: roll/cylinder up to 45cm long x 8cm diameter
- and weight up to 2kg max
- RM 1st cl small pcls £5.45 next day
- RM 1st cl small pcls sig £6.55 next day
- RM 2nd cl small pcls £3.80 3-days
- RM 2nd cl small pcls sig £4.90 3-days
- Medium parcels: 61cm x 46cm x 46cm
- and weight up to 20kg max
- RM 1st cl mdm pcls £8.90 next day
- RM 1st cl mdm pcls sig £10.00 next day
- RM 2nd cl mdm pcls £8.00 3-days
- RM 2nd cl mdm pcls sig £9.10 3-days
- Large parcels: 150cm max dim, combined length + width + depth <= 300cm
- and weight up to 30kg max
- No Royal Mail services available.
- Large parcels: 250cm max dim, combined length + width + depth <= 500cm
- and weight up to 30kg max
- Parcelforce express48 £9.99
- RM Special Delivery ignored - small parcel costs start at £11.00.
- Delivery within 2-3 days
- Parcel value less than £20 chosen ("don't know" does the same)
- ----------------------------------------
- Hermes (http://www.myhermes.co.uk) has these restrictions:
- "Parcel is less than 15kg, less than 120cm in length and a maximum combined length and circumference of 225cm."
- With weight of 1-2kg you get the £3.78 deal offered. But you have to add £1.00 for Hermes to get a signature. So the true Hermes price is £4.78. Push the weight to the maximum, 10-15kg and you're quoted a price of £9.78.
- ----------------------------------------
- So on a parcel weighing over 10kg, Royal Mail medium parcels beats Hermes by 68p. Parcelforce betters Hermes for size/volume and maximum weight allowed for 20p more.
- The comparable RM service to Hermes for a 2kg parcel is the "RM 2nd cl small pcls sig" service at £4.90, for which Hermes - with signature - beats them by only 12p and not the '59% saving', £5.32 difference as claimed in The Times.
- ============================================================
- Text of full article:
- ---------------------
- Royal Mail facing backlash
- over 'lost £1bn' from sell-off
- +---------------------------------------------------------+
- | Cash and carry |
- +---------------------------------------------------------+
- | Comparable UK parcels |
- | Service * Weight Royal Mail Rival Saving |
- | price price |
- | 2-3 day 2kg £9.10 Hermes £3.78 59% |
- | Next day 5kg £16.95 CityLink £10.79 36% |
- | Next day 20kg £34.50 CityLink £10.79 69% |
- +---------------------------------------------------------+
- ----------
- Robert Lea Industrial Editor
- Ministers, investment bankers and
- senior civil servants are bracing them-
- selves for recriminations this week
- when the Government's auditors give
- their verdict on the flotation of Royal
- Mail, which appears to have lost tax-
- payers in excess of £1 billion.
- In what is likely to be a trying week
- for the privatised postal network, Royal
- Mail has pushed through stamp price
- and parcel charge rises today that its
- competitors say will show that the
- former monopoly is trying to profit
- from its market dominance.
- The National Audit Office will pub-
- lish this week its findings on last
- autumn's £3.3 billion sell-off by the
- Government. If the NAO follows the
- example of the House of Commons
- Select Committee on Business, which
- conducted its own inquiry into the priv-
- atisation, the verdict will be damning.
- Vince Cable, the Business Secretary,
- and Michael Fallon, the minister in
- charge of postal affairs, have been
- charged with selling Royal Mail too
- cheaply - raising £2 billion from the
- sale of shares in a transaction that
- gifted postal workers 10 per cent of the
- company and in which the Treasury
- retains 30 per cent.
- The have been criticised for relying
- on Lazards and Goldman Sachs, their
- advisers, especially as subsequent evi-
- dence found that 21 banks in the City on
- average valued the business at between
- £3.9 billion and £4.8 billion, with one
- institution saying it would be worth as
- much as £8.6 billion.
- At Friday's close, Royal Mail was
- worth £5.65 billion on the stock market,
- giving the free float of shares a value of
- £3.4 billion. That means the City and
- other investors have made a £1.4 billion,
- or 70 per cent, profit. Private investors
- who subscribed for £750-worth of
- shares, and who kept them, are sitting
- on a £525 profit.
- At a hearing before MPs, Mark
- Russell, the civil servant in charge of
- the sell-off as chief executive of the
- Government's Shareholder Executive,
- said that he was satisfied with the
- advice he had been given. Adrian
- Bailey, the Business Committee chair-
- man retorted: "You are demonstrating
- a degree of gullibility which I would
- have thought is incompatible with the
- role you perform."
- Royal Mail price rises that came
- into effect today have also attracted
- criticism. MyParcelDelivery, a price
- comparison website, said that many
- small businesses could be hundreds of
- pounds a year out of pocket if they did
- not shop around.
- Hermes and its Parcel2Go division
- said that it would drop its prices at the
- lower end of the market and predicted
- that others would follow, "The 1kg
- parcel has been Royal Mail's bread and
- butter, but the [Royal Mail] price in-
- crease highlights that these days may
- be at an end," James Greenbury, a
- director, said.
- The price of first-class stamp goes
- up by 3 per cent to 62p, while the
- second-class rate is raised by 6 per cent
- to 53p.
- "Consumers and businesses can
- expect price increases above inflation
- as long as Royal Mail has market power
- in letters and small packages," Dimitris
- Hiotis, a pricing specialist at Simon-
- Kucher & Partners, a consulting firm,
- said. "The larger price increase on
- second-class stamps indicates consum-
- ers and businessess have switched to
- second-class and Royal Mail wants to
- limit this switching down."
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