Our latest report, Global Parcels Mergers and Acquisitions Market Insight Report 2016, shows that postal operators have led M&A activity in the global parcels industry since 2016.
Our analysts collected data on 196 deals in the global parcels industry since 2006. Postal operators were at the forefront of mergers and acquisition activity, with integrators closely behind, followed by private equity houses, logistics players and marketplaces.
Postal operators have been improving their core services and diversifying their businesses away from core operations, as letter volumes continue to decline. Post offices are seeking growth through acquisitions in growth segments such as parcels, logistics, direct mail, e-commerce and other mail services. One example of this is Japan Post’s acquisition of Toll Group for US$5.1bn.
Other post offices are more strategic and geographically targeted with their acquisitions. Austrian Post, for example, has targeted Central and Eastern Europe, and PostNord has acquired logistics companies in the Nordic region.
Integrators and Marketplaces have also been active in making acquisitions. Integrators have conducted 29 acquisitions since 2006, the largest deal being FedEx’s proposed purchase of TNT Express. UPS has made a number of acquisitions to build its presence in e-commerce, and has also acquired freight capacity in the US. Amazon and Alibaba are increasingly investing in logistics infrastructure, with Alibaba continuing to invest in Singapore Post and Amazon acquiring Colis Prive in France.
Acquisition activity is bouncing back with 2015 showing the most number of deals in our data, more than five times more than the number of deals in 2010. A number of strategic exits have taken place over the period. Notable were the exits by DHL from a number of domestic markets, including the US, France, the UK and Romania.
The report, Global Parcels Mergers and Acquisitions Market Insight Report 2016 which comes with an Excel Datasheet of transactions, can be purchased and downloaded from Apex Insight’s website.
