Parcels and letters
Bang in the delivery market: Competition authorities prohibit Swiss Post from taking over its competitor Quickmail
The Competition Commission (Weko) prohibits Swiss Post from taking over its competitor Quickmail. According to the competition authorities, “a de facto monopoly” would be created. There is also a takeover alternative.
Yellow and green remain separate: The Competition Commission prohibits Swiss Post from taking over its competitor Quickmail.
Images: Keystone, Michael Isler; Assembly: CHM
According to competition watchdogs, the takeover of Quickmail by Swiss Post would eliminate “effective competition” in at least one market. In addition, there is at least “one competition-friendly alternative” to the takeover, wrote the Comco in a statement on Friday.
Quickmail criticizes the Comco decision in a statement. The reason for the takeover offer to the post office last summer was that “even after the most intensive efforts, no other viable options” could be found for the private delivery company to continue to exist independently. The decision now made by the Comco “endangers over 3,000 jobs,” according to Quickmail.
Quickmail Holding AG is considered the first private company in Switzerland to deliver addressed mail since the partial liberalization of the mail market. In 2018, the asset manager Verium took over Quickmail. The current Quickmail president is a partner at the Zurich multi-family office.
Last July, Swiss Post announced that it wanted to completely take over Quickmail Holding with its two logistics companies, Quickmail (for letter delivery) and Quickpac (for parcels). Neither Post nor Quickmail commented on the purchase price at the time.
According to Weko, the takeover “actually led to a monopoly”
At the time, the postal service justified its intention to take over with the continued decline in letter volumes and the intense competition in the parcel market. Therefore, the two companies “could no longer exist independently”. As the Quickmail president explained at the time, this development is, on the other hand, offset by “very high operating costs,” which will make profitable operations impossible in the future.
But the Comco has now brushed off the argument that the restructuring takeover was put forward. After an in-depth review, she determined that the takeover would “eliminate competition in the market for national addressed bulk mail items over 50 grams for business customers,” as she writes. In addition to the post office, “an alternative potential buyer for the Quickmail group” is available. And they also have many years of experience in the field of postal services.
Quickmail diametrically contradicts this argument. In Friday’s announcement, she wrote that the Swiss Post’s monopoly position would be “further strengthened” by the Comco’s ban on takeovers. “Thanks to the Comco ban, the postal service receives market consolidation ‘free of charge’,” says the private delivery company based in St.Gallen.
Concerns about the post-shopping spree in political and business circles
In addition, according to Comco, a takeover by the post office would “establish or strengthen a dominant market position for the post office” in various letter and parcel post markets as well as in the market for the delivery of newspapers and magazines. In other words: “The takeover would create a de facto monopoly for the postal service,” concludes the competition watchdog. According to Comco, this would be at the expense of consumers and business customers.
The announcement of the Quickmail takeover by Swiss Post led to some strong criticism, particularly in politics and business circles. In any case, the state-owned postal service’s appetite for takeover, which has been observed for a few years now, is being viewed critically. Swiss Post counters that it wants to prepare itself for the future with strategic commitments in new, related business areas.