Royal Mail's first-class returns fail to silence critics

On Friday many people could see the value of their stake instantly rocket. While 96% of postal workers are against it, for the government – and City investors – it offers a huge windfall

A half millennium of history will end on Friday when the government goes where even Margaret Thatcher dared not tread and privatises Royal Mail.

In between divorcing and beheading wives, Henry VIII appointed Brian Tuke to the newly created role of "Master of the Posts" in 1516. The job was a forerunner to Postmaster General and the service – which for its first 119 years was reserved for royals to send letters between palaces – became Royal Mail.

The postal service, the world's oldest, has remained in public ownership ever since, despite attempts by both the Tories' Lord Heseltine and Labour's Lord Mandelson to flog it and swell the nation's coffers.

Thatcher, who sold off British Gas, British Airways, British Telecom and dozens of other state-owned institutions in the 1980s, drew the line at Royal Mail, saying famously that she was "not prepared to have the Queen's head privatised".

But on 7am on Friday up to 70% of Royal Mail will be sold to investors and listed on the London Stock Exchange – swelling Treasury coffers by about £2bn, though that will no more than dent the £115.7bn deficit the government ran up on the public finances last year.

The government is pressing ahead with the sale despite fierce opposition from the public, politicians of all hues and Royal Mail's 150,000 postmen and women, who are planning days of debilitating strike action in protest.

Vince Cable and Michael Fallon, the business secretary and business minister in charge of the sale, say that in these straitened economic times Royal Mail can no longer be owned by the state as it has to compete with schools and hospitals for much-need investment. Royal Mail needs to borrow hundreds of millions of pounds to prepare for a future delivering parcels ordered online from the likes of Amazon and Asos, rather than cards and letters that are dying out in favour of emails and messages on Facebook or Twitter. Letter traffic has dropped by a quarter over the past five years to just 58m items a day.

"It cannot be right for Royal Mail to come cap-in-hand to ministers each time it wants to invest and innovate," Cable said. "The public will always want government to invest in schools and hospitals ahead of Royal Mail."

Fallon has said that if Royal Mail were to remain in state hands "every £1 it borrows is another £1 on the national debt. That means growing the national debt. No responsible party could propose that in the current environment, or for that matter in any environment, when Royal Mail – run on a fully commercial basis – has the capacity to be cash-generative, profitable and perfectly able to raise the capital it needs from the private sector."

After years of heavy losses – £320m in 2010 and £258m in 2011 – Royal Mail is now steadily increasing its profits. In the latest accounts available, for the six months to September 2012, it made operating profits of £144m compared with £12m a year earlier, while sales remained roughly flat at £4.4bn.

Royal Mail has also been given greater freedom to increase the price of stamps – over the past five years the price of a first-class stamp has risen from 41p to 60p – and is allowed to make a "reasonable commercial return" (a margin of 5-10%) on its universal service obligation to deliver to every address in the country six days a week, which the government promises will be maintained for the foreseeable future, no matter who owns the company.

Royal Mail has also been freed of its £12bn pension fund deficit by transferring the scheme from the company to the state, at a cost of £1.3bn in the first year alone.

City experts reckon these changes outweigh the threat of strike action and any political and public backlash and will make Royal Mail very attractive both to big banks and investment firms as well as the public, who are able to buy its shares as long as they can stump up a minimum of £750.

Gert Zonneveld, managing director of stockbroker Panmure Gordon, said he expects the flotation to be a "raging success", with investors trying to buy up to 10 times as many shares as are available, But most of the demand, he said, is down to the "exceptionally attractive" value the government has placed on the shares. It has said they will be priced between 260p and 330p, giving the company a maximum market value of £3.3bn.

Zonneveld reckons the government's range represents an "exceptionally good entry level for investors", and said the shares should have been priced at up to 450p.

"I'm so convinced they [the government] got it wrong," Zonneveld said. "I think they're more than £1bn too low [in their valuation of the company]."

By comparing Royal Mail's profits and revenues to that of other listed postal services in other countries, Zonneveld thinks the company should be valued between £3.7bn and £4.5bn.

Under his valuation, Royal Mail would join the FTSE 100 list of Britain's biggest companies, which means tracker funds would be forced to buy the stock, sending demand – and the price – even higher. "I think this is going to be massively oversubscribed," he said. "Institutional investors who want £10m will increase their order to £50m because they know their orders will be scaled back."

He predicts that the share price could rise by 30% on the first day of trading on Friday. It means the government could lose out on about an extra £500m if it had priced the shares at 450p. The government has said it will not increase the price range above 330p no matter how high the demand for the shares.

The expected jump in the share price could go some way to placating Royal Mail's 150,000 employees, who are in the midst of voting for nationwide strike action, the first since 2009, which cannot take place until 23 October.

The government is giving employees 10% of the shares for free. If the shares at the top end of the government's 330p estimate,each employee will own shares worth £2,200 on Friday morning. If they perform as Zonneveld predicts they could be worth £2,860 by Friday afternoon.

But even the prospect of nearly £3,000 is not enough to win over most postmen and women. The Communication Workers Union, which represents 115,000 Royal Mail staff, says that 96% of employees are adamant in their opposition to the sell-off.

"I don't want the money," Theodore Mbungu, 56, said as he trudged about his north London round last week. "I want my job to stay the same. When it's private we will be paid less and have to work harder. What other job is there where you talk to people every day and they are happy and smiling and excited to see you?

"In what other job can you do your work and then go straight home, even though you're still being paid? I love being a postman. It's the best job in this country, but I know once the men in the City get their hands on it, it will never be the same again."

Article Source : http://www.guardian.co.uk
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BA considers life outside Heathrow as CAA backtracks on charges

Regulator rules charges will rise at faster rate than first proposed – despite agreeing airport is badly managed and staff overpaid

British Airways has warned that it will consider a future outside Heathrow after the regulator revised its proposals to cut landing charges – despite agreeing that the airport was badly managed and staff overpaid.

Airlines cried foul as the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) ruled that charges will rise at the rate of inflation over the next five years instead of the RPI minus 1.3% rate it had proposed in the spring – and well above the real terms cut demanded by airlines.

Heathrow, which has argued for increasing returns to shareholders to ensure foreign investment continued, said the settlement would be "the toughest [it] has ever faced" and claimed it could have "serious and far-reaching consequences for passengers".

British Airways, which accounts for just over half of the traffic at the London hub, said it was a "bad day" for its customers. Willie Walsh, chief executive of the airline's parent company IAG, said the CAA had let down its passengers by ignoring calls for cuts. He said: "As the only hub airport in the UK, Heathrow exerts monopoly power over its users. Like other airlines at Heathrow, we cannot move to a better-run UK hub that offers customers real value for money."

But, Walsh added, the cost of Heathrow meant alternative hubs were "more attractive and realistic". The IAG boss has previously mooted the idea of focusing on Madrid, the base of BA's sister airline Iberia. Walsh recently said he no longer backs a third runway at Heathrow, at a time when the government's Airports Commission is considering expanding capacity in the south-east.

Walsh said: "No such alternative exists today but these excessive charges combined with a complacent management team at Heathrow make an alternative hub look more attractive and more realistic. We will carefully consider our next steps."

The CAA said that its decision to freeze rather than cut landing charges at Heathrow reflected the increasing cost of raising capital for investment. But while it had accepted some of Heathrow's arguments, the regulator claimed that it had toughened up on operating costs – and concurred with BA's view that the airport needed better management.

Iain Osborne, group director of regulatory policy at the CAA, said: "We think that with the right management focus they can do a lot to increase operating efficiency. Pay is too high; too much overtime being worked. Throughput rates for security are lower than other airports."

However, Heathrow's chief executive, Colin Matthews, who has argued that its shareholders needed rewarding to continue the investment that has transformed the airport over the last five years, said: "This proposal is the toughest Heathrow has ever faced. The CAA's proposed cost of capital of 5.6% is below the level at which Heathrow's shareholders have said they are willing to invest. The CAA's settlement could have serious and far-reaching consequences for passengers and airlines at Heathrow.

"We want to continue to improve Heathrow for passengers. Instead, the CAA's proposals risk not only Heathrow's competitive position but the attractiveness of the UK as a centre for international investment."

But Osborne said the owners – largely foreign sovereign wealth funds – were getting a fair return for a low-risk business. "There's no reason that passengers should pay more to meet the ambitions of its shareholders."

However, other airlines accused the CAA of caving in to Britain's largest airport. Virgin Atlantic said it was "deeply disappointing to see the CAA has bowed to pressure from Heathrow Airport Limited and its shareholders" and said that higher charges were "another hammer blow for both UK consumers and overseas visitors". It called on the CAA to "urgently review its recommendations".

Osborne insisted: "We're not balancing airlines against airports but the passenger interest in lower charges against the passenger interest in better services."

The CAA meanwhile said Gatwick airport could increase landing charges by RPI plus 0.5% annually for seven years, under a more flexible arrangement. Gatwick gave a "cautious welcome" to the proposals.

However, easyJet, the airport's largest customer, said it was disappointed with the increase in proposed average charges and warned that leeway given to Gatwick over a possible second runway was a "licence to print money". It claimed it could lead to passengers paying £28 more per flight.

The CAA has deferred a ruling on Stansted regulation after the airport, under the new ownership of MAG, struck deals with its largest customer Ryanair in recent weeks.

Article Source : http://www.guardian.co.uk
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British Airways chief attacks Heathrow boss for 'ripping off passengers'

Willie Walsh calls on 'pathetic' Heathrow chief to resign in row over planned rise in landing fees and cuts in airport spending

The boss of Britain's biggest airline has accused Heathrow of ripping off passengers and employing too many overpaid staff, calling for the airport's chief executive to be replaced.

Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways' parent company IAG, said the airport was planning to raise prices by £600m over five years while cutting spending on facilities.

In a strident denunciation of the London airport's "abusive monopoly", Walsh said that Heathrow's boss, Colin Matthews, had been "pathetic" in trying to make a political argument linking higher airport charges to Britain's need for more overseas investment.

With the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) scheduled to rule on the fees that Heathrow can charge airlines, Walsh warned the regulator not to be "hoodwinked" again, and to correct its mistakes of the recent past which Walsh said involved Heathrow being "grossly over-rewarded".

Walsh said Heathrow's management seemed "incapable of running their business efficiently within a routine cost-control environment". He added: "What we see is an airport that has too many people; those people are paid too much."

The CAA is due on October 3 to set fees that the airport can charge from 2014. It has proposed raising charges below inflation, at RPI -1.3%, over the next five years – a level some way below Heathrow's demands. Airlines led by BA, the airport's biggest customer, have demanded a real-terms cut of almost 10% after five years in which charges rose by RPI +7.5%.

Walsh insisted the CAA was "not being robust enough". He added: "If the CAA does not take a stronger line on this it will continue to be inefficient and that will be at the expense of passengers."

According to BA's calculations, increased landing fees will mean every passenger journey costs £7 more than the airline believes is reasonable.

Matthews had provoked Walsh's ire by saying that lower charges gave no incentive for shareholders to invest and that Britain would not be able to attract foreign capital.

Heathrow's major shareholders are the sovereign wealth funds of Qatar, Singapore and China, as well as a Canadian pension fund and Spanish construction giant Ferrovial.

Walsh said: "Passengers are paying more than they should and the benefits of that are going to higher-than-average rewards for the shareholders.

"If Colin Matthews is incapable of running the airport and making the investment that's necessary, and requires an excessive return to justify that investment, then he should be replaced.

"If he was the CEO at a listed entity and came out with the statements he's come out with, I suspect shareholders would take a completely different view because of the impact on the share price."

Walsh feared the regulator was succumbing to external pressure to adjust its proposal in Heathrow's favour. "It makes London, certainly Heathrow, less competitive than the rest of Europe."

He admitted BA could not leave Heathrow, but vowed to appeal if the CAA did not cut its charges.

Heathrow has said that the CAA's current proposed charges would mean less maintenance of the airport, and the curbing of planned improvements to baggage facilities and other aspects affecting passengers.

A Heathrow official said: "We have put forward plans for more than £400m of cost savings over the next five years. We want to continue the investment that has been improving Heathrow for passengers.

"Airlines' proposals for 40% price cuts can't be achieved without risking under-investment and a return to the out-dated Heathrow of the past."

Article Source : http://www.guardian.co.uk

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