InPost to acquire Mondial Relay

With this move, the Hamburg-based Otto Group of retail and services companies is now also implementing in France the realignment of its logistics-sector it announced last year and which it has already successfully completed in Germany and the UK. An agreement has been signed with the Amsterdam Stock Exchange-listed InPost Group intending to acquire 100 percent of France-based Mondial Relay for approximately EUR 565 million. The proposed transaction remains subject to approval by the companies’ respective committees and the corresponding antitrust authorities*.

“The combination of Mondial Relay and InPost is a clear win for both companies and offers them an optimal position to realise further growth potential in the fiercely competitive and rapidly growing French parcel logistics market”, says Kay Schiebur, Otto Group Executive Board Member, Services. “In recent years, with its innovative, customer-centric ‘last-mile’ solutions Mondial Relay has already proven that retailers and end-customers alike can continue to count on unrestricted high and safe delivery quality, even in the current pandemic situation. The mutually complementing strengths of both networks, consisting of parcel stores and automated parcel machines, so called APMs, can deliver a further significant improvement in the customer and service experience.”

Rafal Brzoska, Founder and CEO of InPost says: “As we outlined during our recent IPO, international expansion is a key element of InPost’s growth strategy and Mondial Relay gives us an immediate footprint in one of Europe’s largest e-commerce markets, providing multiple levers to accelerate our overall growth and create shareholder value. Mondial Relay’s extensive network of pick-up and drop-off points fits perfectly with our innovative APM solutions and we see significant opportunity for the combination to unlock untapped demand and re-define the last mile delivery experience for consumers.”

Mondial Relay has been able to continuously strengthen its market position over the last few years, thus in the 2019/20 financial year, a volume increase of 51 percent year-over-year was realized, and over 140 million shipments were completed in the past twelve months. In France, the B2C and C2C parcel logistics specialist operates a comprehensive nationwide and market-leading network of more than 10,500 pick-up and drop-off (PUDO) stations. InPost was established in Poland in 1999 and today offers a range of parcel delivery and fulfilment services for B2C and C2C deliveries through its network of more than 12,000 parcel automates (APMs) currently installed in Poland, the UK and Italy. In 2020, this enabled the InPost group to make around 249 million parcel deliveries.

In France, too, contactless delivery via parcel automats continues to gain in importance due to their highly flexible 24/7/365 service, especially in urban regions – a trend that started well before the Corona pandemic. Thanks to the complementary service portfolios of Mondial Relay and InPost, customers will now be able to benefit from a broader market offer of alternative parcel services.

InPost's proposed acquisition of Mondial Relay also includes the Group's activities in Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. The partnership will not impact the further activities of Hermes France Holding SAS. The operational management of Mondial Relay is to be continued by the current successful executive team. Its existing collaborations with business partners and corporate clients will also remain unaffected.

*Remark from 01.07.2021: In the meantime the mentioned releases have been granted. The closing of the purchase agreement was effective as of July 01, 2021.