Minister for IT and Investments Dr Austin Gatt yesterday announced the initial public offering of government’s remaining 40% shareholding in Maltapost plc, which until 2013 owns a monopoly over the provision of local postal services.
The share offer consists of 11,200,000 shares of a nominal value of €0.25c per share being offered at a price of €0.50c per share – releasing 40% of Maltapost market capitalisation of €14 million. The company will also adopt a dividend policy of distributing up to 50% of yearly available profits.
“This is the last step towards the privatisation of Maltapost,” Austin Gatt said. “I am taking the current silence from opposition as a consensus that our views on the privatisation of Maltapost are no longer controversial. We want to focus on governmental affairs, and want to keep government small thus moving away from business.
“We could have easily offered our 40% share to Lombard Bank and I’m confident that they would have very much considered the option. Instead, we decided to promote the idea of letting the general public invest in lucrative enterprises. We have seen significant progress in a company that used to cost the taxpayer a lot of money.”
In 2006, Lombard Bank purchased all previous owner Transend’s shareholding in Maltapost and eventually bought an additional 25% from government, making it majority shareholder with a 60% stake.
As outlined by Maltapost chairman Joseph Said, over the past years the postal service company had made significant quality leaps making it more financially viable.
Despite a 30% decrease in staff complement over the past nine years, last year Maltapost achieved a result of 94.5% for inbound mail delivered the day after arrival in Malta, exceeding the 92% target set by the Malta Communications Authority and the European average of 88%.
“For some reason, postal services around the world do not normally publicise efficiency figures quoted by the International Post Corporation,” he said.
Said also announced that Malta had placed third out of 29 European countries for success rate of next day delivery.
Taking the Poste Italiane model of combining business and banking, Said revealed plans of offering “low-cost financial services” from Maltapost branches.
“By the end of the first quarter of this year, Maltapost branches will be offering the possibility of cashing pension cheques,” Said said.
The offer being made by the government falls within its plan to fully liberalise the postal services industry in Malta and further segregate the government’s position as policy maker and operator within the industry.
The completion of the process of privatisation of the company, the first phase of which was initiated in 2002 with the sale of shares to New Zealand company Transend, forms part of the government’s privatisation programme.
All of the proceeds of the offer, which are estimated to be in the region of €5,600,000 (Lm2,404,080), will be for the account of the government.
The trend in Maltapost’s business during 2007 registered a 3.5% growth in domestic letter-post traffic and a decrease of 4.7% for international letter post when compared to the previous year. In parcels, an increase of 12.3% was registered. The company’s postal revenue was €16m representing an increase of 12% over the previous year. Letter post represented 65.7% of revenue which was 0.7% lower than in 2006. Parcels and logistics services increased by 5.8% to contribute 6.6% of total revenue in 2007 while financial products, which includes postal orders, money transfer and bill collection, accounted for 0.6%. Other services such as PO Boxes, redirection of mail, philately and stationery, accounted for 27.1% of revenue.
Back in 2002, the government sold off 35% of Maltapost shares to New Zealand company Transend Worldwide Ltd – a move that had been met by a fair amount of controversy after the company decided to cut down on its workforce.

ddarmanin@mediatoday.com.mt