Royal Mail’s international delivery subsidiary General Logistics Systems (GLS) has announced that it has bought the US based overnight parcel delivery firm Postal Express.

GLS new acquisition operates in the US Northeast, specifically in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Postal Express mainly works with business to business customers.

GLS recently acquired the Golden State Overnight Delivery Service (GSO) in October. As such this is a sign of GLS growing interest in the US market.

Royal Mail’s subsidiary paid for 100% of the shares in Postal Express for around USD $13.3 million (£10.6 million).

The US B2B couriers had revenues of around $42 million in 2016, delivering around 8.7 million parcels that year.

Royal Mail said in a statement that Postal Express will be consolidated within GLS for reporting purposes but managed as a separate entity.

Rico Back, Chief Executive Officer, GLS Group, commented: “The acquisition of Postal Express is in line with GLS’ strategy of careful and focused geographic expansion.”

While GLS is very active in the EU, it is building a small but significant portfolio in North America. Though a major player in Europe, it has however quite some way to go before the likes of UPS or FedEx need to sit up and start watching. Altogether Royal Mail Group have revenues in the single £billions, very similar to TNT that was snapped up by FedEx in the last year… 
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