Thursday, May 23, 2024, 2:33 p.m.
Royal Mail’s parent company, International Distribution Services (IDS), has failed to submit its full-year annual report by the 7am deadline on Thursday morning amid concerns over a possible takeover.
IDS was scheduled to report its full fiscal year 2024 results this morning, but at 7:42 a.m. the press team sent an email apologizing for the inconvenience.
It said there was “a delay in publishing our results this morning. We expect them to be available in the next hour or so.”
After several hours of silence, the company issued the following statement at 1:46 p.m.: “International Distribution Services plc today announces a postponement of the publication of its financial results for the 53 weeks ended March 31, 2024, originally scheduled for May 23 2024 was planned.
It added: “The group’s auditor, KPMG, has requested additional time to complete standard operating procedures after their internal reviews were late in the audit schedule, thereby delaying their final audit process.
“The Board of Management confirms that it expects adjusted operating profit (excluding voluntary severance costs) for the 53 weeks ending March 31, 2024 to be broadly in line with previously published forecasts,” the statement concluded.
The company announced a further announcement as soon as possible, but the market reacted poorly to the news and shares fell four percent.
This comes while IDS is still in an offering phase following EP Group’s possible takeover of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky last week.
Last Wednesday it said it was “ready” to accept the increased takeover offer worth around £3.5 billion.
Shares in the FTSE 250 company rose as much as 20 percent following the update. IDS said it would likely agree on the terms and price of the proposal if Kretinsky made a firm offer.
Kretinsky’s EP Group, which already holds a stake of around 27.6 percent in IDS through its subsidiary Vesa Equity, had increased its offer to 370 pence per share, including a dividend of 10 pence.
The potential takeover comes as Britain’s controversial national postal service, which was privatised in 2013, calls for urgent action to modernise its operations. Royal Mail is facing rapidly declining letter volumes and increasing competition from more agile rivals such as Amazon, Evri and DPD.
In its third-quarter results, IDS said group revenue increased 9.8 percent compared to the same period in 2022 as Royal Mail won back some customers. However, this was partially offset by higher costs due to salary increases and inflation.
The company reported losses of £169 million in the first half of the year.
This article has been corrected to reflect the IDS statement published at 13:46.