Poland’s largest private delivery firm, InPost, has acquired a 30% stake in Menzies Distribution -a UK-based logistics company operating in the British and Irish markets – for £49.3 million (253 million zloty) in a bid to accelerate the development of its business in the UK.
As part of the deal, InPost – which pioneered the use of parcel delivery lockers in Poland and since expanded internationally – has also secured a three-year option to acquire the remaining 70% stake.
“This transaction is a milestone for the development of our business in the UK market,” said Rafał Brzoska, CEO of InPost and one of Poland’s richest men. “Together with Menzies, we will be able to offer parcel delivery 360 days a year, which is a unique offering on the UK e-commerce market.”
“Even Amazon doesn’t cover the whole country and we will be able to do that. This removes all our pain points in the UK,” he added, quoted by Business Insider Polska.
"Grupa InPost kupiła za 49,3 mln funtów 30 proc. udziału i praw głosów w brytyjskiej spółce Menzies Distribution Group Limited – jednej z największych firm logistycznych operujących na rynkach Wielkiej Brytanii i Irlandii." https://t.co/ubQQbPVUME
— Dr Marceli K. Król (@PfpEdu) July 19, 2023
Menzies has 100 branches, a central sorting facility and nine regional sorting facilities in the UK and Ireland. It manages a fleet of more than 3,200 vehicles and employs more than 5,000 staff. It delivers newspapers and goods to smaller shops and handles parcel delivery.
The purchase of the stake secures InPost two non-executive seats on the currently five-member board of directors. It will allow InPost to have influence over key strategic decisions but not over the day-to-day operations of the company.
The strategic partnership, which follows an earlier cooperation between the companies launched in May, provides the opportunity to handle increasing parcel volumes seven days a week without any additional investment on the part of InPost, the company says.
Poland’s largest private delivery firm, InPost, has announced plans to build a network of publicly available charging points for electric vehicles.
It has already installed 200 such stations for its own fleet of electric delivery vans https://t.co/tuRIDMSp4I
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 17, 2023
During a meeting with journalists, InPost Group CFO Adam Aleksandrowicz noted that the partnership with Menzies may allow InPost to accelerate the expansion of its network of parcel lockers in UK.
“This investment is a catalyst that may even allow us to accelerate the growth of the parcel locker network, and our medium-term forecast is that we want to have 15,000 parcel lockers in the UK in a five-year horizon,” said Aleksandrowicz, quoted by the ISBnews agency.
Last year the company said it already had 4,000 parcel lockers in the UK. InPost also operates in Italy, France, Benelux, Spain and Portugal. In Poland itself, it has more than 20,000 parcel lockers.
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Main image credit: InPost press material
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
