The Dutch based PostNL has sold its German Postcon business to the Munich-private equity investor Quantum Capital Partners GmbH. Thus, PostNL is withdrawing from the German market in order to focus on its core markets in BENELUX in the future.

Postcon, headquartered in Ratingen, has ten sorting centers, some 3,500 own employees and, through its investments in other companies, a further 1,800 employees nationwide. In the Rhineland and Lower Rhine region Postcon operates 1,200 postman. In Berlin, the subsidiary PIN Mail AG provides postal services with another 900 employees. Moreover the company disposes of some 120 independent delivery partners.

Postcon holds around ten percent of the German mail market thus being the second largest provider of mail services.

The new owner will retain the existing business and will continue to expand it, even though the market as a whole is in decline. The employees will also be taken over. “The acquisition makes it clear that as the largest alternative provider in the mail market, we have the strength to gain further market share and thus to shape the competition,”* said Postcon’s CEO, Dr. Rüdiger Gottschalk, in Postcon’s press release on the transaction.

Antitrust approval is still pending. The parties expect the transaction to be completed by the end of 2019.

Quantum was advised on the transaction by TRACC LEGAL, Dr. Thomas Lotz (lead manager). PostNL was represented by Bird & Bird (lead partner Dr. Stefanie Orttmann, LL.M.). TRACC has already assisted Quantum on several occasions.

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*Translated by our editors. See original quote in German here.