London
Misdelivered: International Distribution Services (IDS), the owner of Royal Mail, is urging Ofcom, the communications regulator, to speed up its review of the postal service’s plans to modernise as the company fends off a potential £3.1bn hostile takeover by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, says James Warrington in The Telegraph. IDS rejected an offer from Kretinsky, whose company, EP Group, is IDS’s largest shareholder with a 27.5% stake. The takeover offer “significantly undervalues IDS and is highly opportunistic”, said IDS’s chairman Keith Williams. Fund manager Redwheel, IDS’s third-largest shareholder with a 6.65% stake, backs the reform plans. Kretinsky, who also owns stakes in Sainsbury’s and West Ham Football Club, was put through a national security review in 2022 after he increased his holding in IDS. He has until 15 May to make a new bid, which would probably be examined by regulators.
IDS wants to reform the universal service obligation, which requires Royal Mail to deliver letters six days a week. It plans to cut nearly 1,000 jobs and save £300m a year by reducing deliveries of second-class post to three days a week, while first-class post would continue to be delivered six days a week and parcels for seven days. EP Group criticised Royal Mail’s “slow transformation”, which was putting “unsustainable pressure” on the company. Williams blamed the “lack of reform… by the government and Ofcom over the past four years… [for holding] back Royal Mail’s transformation”. “Urgent action” was needed, he said. Ofcom, which is expected to publish an update on its consultation this summer, said some reform options would “require government and Parliament to change primary legislation, while others could be made through changes to Ofcom regulations”.
New York
FTC handbags deal: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the US competition watchdog, has blocked Tapestry’s $8.5bn takeover of rival handbag maker Capri on the basis that the merger would hand Tapestry too much power in the market for “affordable” handbags. “The quest to become an American luxury giant is turning out to be an uphill battle” for the owner of brands Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman, says Jinjoo Lee in The Wall Street Journal. Tapestry and Capri, which owns Michael Kors and Versace, have a combined 17% share of the North American handbag market. But at the “affordable” end – where bags can still cost hundreds of dollars – their market share is 53%.
That said, they both cater
