Who is going buy some. I can't as I am not resident in the UK..............those that are can buy up to £750 worth. https://www.gov.uk/royalmailshares
Any future growth will be in parcel and larger delivery, the mail service will continue to decline as the internet continues to kill off demand for conventional mail so the privatised Royal Mail has to compete with all the other established shipping companies. I hope they succeed, when the like of Amazon or eBay sellers use Royal Mail I tend to be confident that I will receive my goods, there are many other carriers for whom I cannot say the same.
Thats a good point actually, I was going to throw a little cash at these but i think I'll hang fire for a while and do some more thinking
"Royal Mail's shares will be priced at 330p, valuing the whole of Royal Mail at £3.3bn, the BBC has learned. The price is at the top end of what the government was hoping for, after applications massively outstripped the number of shares on offer, BBC business editor Robert Peston reported. The government will sell 52.2% of the company, the maximum it was prepared to sell at this stage, our editor added. That puts the value for the Treasury of the privatisation at £1.7bn. On Tuesday, Business Secretary Vince Cable said the Royal Mail share-offering for private investors was seven times over-subscribed, with 700,000 applications in total. ." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24462388
"A late rush to buy shares in the Royal Mail was under way on Sunday night, with investors predicted to enjoy an instant profit of up to 40 per cent." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...as-City-speculators-set-to-make-millions.html
Royal Mail shares jump sharply on market debut Royal Mail shares rose 38% to 455p in their first day of conditional dealings on the London Stock Exchange. The hugely oversubscribed sale was priced at 330p a share, valuing the 500-year-old firm at £3.3bn. At one point, the price hit 459.75p. Private investors received 227 shares each. In all, more than 225 million shares were traded on Friday. The shares are listed officially next Tuesday, but City institutions began conditional dealings on Friday. Some 10 million shares were traded in the first 30 seconds when the market opened. Stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown reported that its website was having "intermittent problems" due to the "unprecedented interest" in Royal Mail. [/I] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24488144
Sorry Stu, for putting you off, looks like you could have made a quick killing, I am still not optimistic about their future though.
I've been with RM for 6 years and there has been no decline of mail in my office. We have just seen more and more direct mail compared with conventional mail. The way RM count mail is highly dubious and I think has largely been used as a propaganda tool to justify job cuts. I note in the prospectus for the sell off they stated that they expected the so called fall in mail volume to slow over the next decade. Which is very convenient. More likely they'll change the way they count it... again!
Wouldn't it be done by postcode and one letter triggering once on the counter? Or doesn't it work like that? As a student, many years ago I spent a few weeks sorting mail just before christmas, in Leciester - night shift. For extra beer money.
Nope, it is all estimated and they have changed the way they estimate on numerous occasions over the years. Every time making the margin of error wider. It is staggering really. It is almost received wisdom now. Mail volumes are down because of e-mail/internet. It seems like common sense but it is forgotten that if mail volumes are down nationally (and I think they are but not by the numbers Royal Mail claim) that will still have been from a record peak that was reached over a decade back. Direct Mail is certainly up. We've become a far more consumerist society over the years. Think of the things you wouldn't have had years ago. We deliver tons of Tesco clubcard statements, for examples. And all sorts of offers and enticements. And this must work for direct mailers otherwise they wouldn't send it out. People honestly think some posties go out with the one bag of mail on their shoulder and deliver to a couple of streets and that is your day. If only they knew! I have about 7 or 8 bags averaging about 7-10kg in weight and I'm out for maybe 3 and a half hours. This is considered a good area where the union is fairly strong. On Royal Mail chat, there are stories of people having 10+ bags a day averaging about 12-16kg in each bag! They're out for maybe 5-6 hours on duties that are meant to be about 3 and a half hours or 4 hours maximum. They come in early unpaid and finish past their time... unpaid. We've had cases of ex-army folks coming in and not being able to hack it! They put up with it because they're so fearful of losing their jobs. Especially up north (where the union is weaker) where the jobs are scarce to say the least. Previously, and still now, we have people who used their cars to transport and deliver. Again, you don't get paid mileage, you don't get paid for the wear and tear and some were not insured for this. Just madness. Ragged Trousered Philanthropists! Royal Mail must have made millions off the back of this unpaid labour. At the end of the day, the rot goes back to removing the monopoly on collecting and delivering mail and then not allowing RM to fairly compete with the new entrants like TNT, UKMail etc. That was the beginning of the end. They called this 'competition'. Really, Royal Mail could always do it cheaper than anyone else. This was well understood which is why RM was not allowed to undercut the new entrants. There would have been no 'competition' otherwise. It was also owned by all of us. It was a national asset that made millions every year which could be ploughed back into the country. The profits on business mail subsidised the ordinary stamped mail. Which is why the price of a stamp was so cheap. There was never any profit in a few pence on a letter from Land's End to John O'Groats. It was rigged to fail, so it could then be privatised on the cheap. Now, the shareholders will want a return on their investment. If something is unprofitable they'll either cut the service or increase the prices. If you live in a rural area, the service go down the toilet.
Yes this is true, a chap I know quite well in my local has done exactly this (often) and told me that it was not allowed but he did it anyway Your point about the total volume of mail at the current time is interesting, however I would still expect that as time goes on much of the "Paper Statement" type of mail will disappear as will much of the junk mail, never understood why companies still do that kind of mailshot as for me at least none of it ever works.
Nor me. Straight in the bin. However, it has done nothing but go up and up in the time I've been there. So again, it is obviously working for them. And this is through the recession years too. That said, I deliver to relatively wealthy areas. There may well have been a drop off in other places and nationally overall.
Royal Mail investors bank £356 profit as shares start trading and government faces renewed accusations of selling business too cheap - but the price may be higher by December "Those who sold today made a paper profit of £356 on their original £750 outlay - a 48 per cent rise" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...-price-may-be-higher-by-december-8881006.html
This is yet another example of the government's merchant bankers under-valuing a state asset so that they and their mates in the City can make a quick killing; the same happened with British Gas and with British Telecom. Vince Cable has, I see, been derided for his "flash-in-the-pan" dismissal of criticism that Royal Mail was sold too cheap. He may have a point in the short term because I also read that the Communication Workers Union votes today on taking strike action which if carried, would likely depress its share value. Even so, he should either resign or be handed his P45. Today's Guardian reports that Royal Mail boss, Moya Greene, is to offer £300 bonuses to those who cross picket lines. Greene was paid £1.6 million last year, Royal Mail should never have been sold nor should it have been prevented from under-cutting its competitors including UKMail and TNT. Their emergence may be good for bulk-mailers but does nothing for ordinary consumers. I don't know about elsewhere in the UK but in my little corner of west Wales letterbox deliveries of bulk mail from both these private companies is, in fact, not delivered by them but by Royal Mail.
