Owner of Russian DPD delivery service in talks to sell business - paper

MOSCOW. Sept 6 (Interfax) - French postal holding GeoPost is negotiating the sale of its Russian delivery service DPD with several large local logistics operators, Kommersant said, citing sources.

Delovye Linii and PEK are both interested, among others, the newspaper's sources said.

DPD Rus is part of the GeoPost's DPD Group network, the second largest parcel delivery service in Europe. DPD operates in 35,000 localities throughout Russia and the EAEU, as well as in 200 countries. The revenue of DPD Rus decreased 24.2% to 14.88 billion rubles in 2022, while net profit dropped 91.4% to 99 million rubles.

GeoPost reported in May 2022 that it had started discussing the potential transfer of the DPD Russian business to a local partner. However, the Russian company stated that it continues to operate, and that the domestic business is financially independent.

In a 2022 report, GeoPost said it had depreciated the assets of its Russian subsidiary by 149 million euros.

In Russia, GeoPost also owns a 29.07% stake in PickPoint, a bankrupt post office network operator whose debt to creditors exceeds 2.6 billion rubles, the newspaper said. GeoPost's intention to sell DPD in Russia does not affect its potential subsidiary liability in the PickPoint bankruptcy case, the newspaper said. However, creditors may interfere with the sale of the DPD business, as the law does not prohibit them from applying for vicarious liability while still at the monitoring stage in the PickPoint case. As part of a dispute such as this, provisional measures may be taken in the form of a ban on the sale of GeoPost assets, including its stake in DPD Rus.