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Royal Mail is close to selling out. Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky in a £3.6bn deal that could be announced in the next two weeks.
Agreement should be reached with Great Britain. New rules on foreign ownership of companies, but Mr Kratinsky passed previous tests when he bought more shares in the 500-year-old company.
Progress toward sales indicates this. The alleged links with Russia have been rejected by the government.
He owns a gas transmission business that transports Russian gas to Europe, leading to speculation that he has links to Vladimir Putin’s government but earlier investigations have found no link.
Mr Kratinsky, known as the Czech Sphinx because of his low profile, has pledged to maintain a global six-day-per-week delivery service with uniform prices across the UK.
He also agreed not to touch the company’s additional pension and promised not to change its name or tax residency for five years, according to the BBC.
No mandatory redundancy for five years is also part of the deal.
The board of Royal Mail’s owner has recommended the offer to its shareholders. The deal must now be approved by ministers under the National Security and Investment Act.
Royal Mail was state-owned for centuries until it was privatized in 2013, when Vince Cable, then business secretary under David Cameron’s coalition government, sold the stake on the London Stock Exchange.
The public was invited to buy shares and the company’s value soared. But since then, its share price has fallen.
The rebranded International Distribution Services Holding Co., which owns Royal Mail, is trading at 357 pence per share, little changed from the 330 pence it sold for more than a decade ago. This resulted in the company being dropped from the top UK companies in the FTSE 100 index in 2022.
Royal Mail has struggled against rivals as people have moved away from sending letters over parcels.
Since the introduction of e-mail and other electronic communications, the sending of letters has declined sharply, with half as many now being sent as in 2011.
International Distribution Services said in May that Royal Mail had made a loss of £336m. The broader company’s financial performance was bettered by its other holdings, including Amsterdam parcel firm GLS.
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