The Bonn-based logistics group Deutsche Post AG has completed its announced name change. From now on the group of companies will only be called DHL AG. This implements a resolution from the general meeting in May, at which 99.95 percent of shareholders voted in favor of this change. The company announced this today in Bonn. From today on, the listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange will only be called DHL AG.
The measure is justified by increasing internationalization. DHL generates around 80 percent of its sales abroad. Many customers and investors there don't have much use for the name Deutsche Post AG.
“Over the past few decades, our company has developed from the former Deutsche Bundespost into a leading global logistics group,” CEO Tobias Meyer said at the annual general meeting. The renaming is overdue in order to adapt the historically grown group structure to the new circumstances.
The old name “Deutsche Post AG” will not disappear completely. The group is now bundling its domestic mail and parcel business in a newly founded company under the same name. This subsidiary is 100 percent owned by DHL. According to the company, the total costs of the changeover amount to around 37 million euros.
Consumers will not notice much of the renaming: the design, logo and name of postal branches and postal agencies will not change. Parcel shipping has been handled there for years under the name DHL. The distinctive, typical Post-yellow décor of mailboxes, points of sale and advertising will also remain unchanged.
Deutsche Post AG is a successor to the Bundespost, which was gradually privatized after 1990. In 2002 the company bought the US logistics company DHL. The abbreviation stands for their company founders Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom and Robert Lynn. The takeover was orchestrated and implemented by then CEO Klaus Zumwinkel.
He was one of the first in the industry to recognize the importance of online business for parcel service providers and the decline of the traditional mail business. His successor Frank Appel consistently continued this strategy and further internationalization. Today, the Bonn-based logistics group is a global player and has around 534,000 full-time jobs worldwide, a third of them in Germany.
In expert circles, the takeover of DHL by Deutsche Post is considered one of the most far-sighted decisions in German economic history. The renowned Post biographer and business journalist Wolfgang Fürwengler later described the move as follows: "Zumwinkel transformed a dusty German authority into the largest logistics empire on earth through an aggressive, global shopping spree."
However, customers don't always see this so positively. As in the entire logistics industry, complaints about unreliability, delays and poor service are increasing at DHL. Last year, the responsible Federal Network Agency registered a historic high of 55,395 official complaints about postal and parcel service providers. According to the authority, around 90 percent related to the market leader DHL. Compared to the previous year, this was an increase of 25 percent.
