Improved transparency - more detailed information for the financial markets
In its Roadmap to Value presented today, Deutsche Post World Net has committed itself to further improve transparency for the capital markets. The objective is to provide the financial markets with more detailed and more comparable reporting in a system, which is stable and transparent for the long term. In-depth feedback from investors and analysts has helped the Group identify the necessary changes. The transparency initiative will focus on three main areas.
- First, the allocation of Global Business Services (GBS) costs to the operating units and subsequently the unbundling of the SERVICES division.
- Second, a commitment to avoid reshufflings of businesses in principle and to keep the reporting structure stable.
- Third, the publication of additional information about the business in the quarterly reporting.
Global Business Services was set up at the end of 2005 to leverage the scale and expertise of the group in a variety of back-end services such as IT, finance, procurement and real estate. It has been very successful in driving down costs and has achieved savings of more than 200 million euros in the last two years. GBS has been reported as part of the Services segment since its inception. In its move to improve transparency, Deutsche Post World Net will now charge all GBS costs to the operating divisions. As a result, the divisional results will reflect the actual usage of GBS services by the divisions and provide a more accurate picture of their cost base and profitability. Furthermore, Deutsche Post World Net will report a more transparent Corporate Center/ Other segment, which will include mainly non-operating items besides the Corporate Center result.
Following this change, Deutsche Post World Net pledges to keep the reporting structure stable and to avoid reshufflings of businesses in principle among the divisions. During the expansion phase, a series of major acquisitions such as Exel had led to necessary reallocations of business units among divisions. While those changes followed a business rationale, the necessary changes in the reporting structure made it difficult for investors and analysts to compare segment results over time. The focus on organic growth now makes it much easier for Deutsche Post World Net to keep the reporting units stable in the future. If reorganizations should , however, become unavoidable due to regulation or business needs, the Group will only do so at the end of the business year and will restate all affected figures for eight quarters or two full business years to ensure their comparability.
Comparability will also be improved by providing more detailed information in the quarterly reporting, starting with the third quarter results released today. Major additions to the reporting are detailed EBIT bridges, which split up the effects leading to a change in EBIT between two periods, such as, among others, organic growth, acquisitions/ divestments, currency effects and other items. Deutsche Post World Net will also provide more detailed information for a sequence of five quarters in a row to facilitate the tracking of business and financial data over time. These data series will be extended to a sequence of eight quarters in a homogeneous reporting structure.
