Bird & Bird advises PostNL on the review of its strategy in Germany as well as the implementation of the strategic realignment

PostNL is an international corporation listed at Euronext Amsterdam. Their business primarily focuses on the delivery of documents as well as small and standard packages. It also provides marketing and communication services, processing solutions and other e-commerce related services.

At the beginning of 2015 PostNL announced a review of their Germany strategy. The results of the review were as follows: 

PostNL decided to abandon the "last-mile" delivery business in the Frankfurt area and to sell the business of its subsidiary, PostCon Regional Frankfurt GmbH, to Mainversand GmbH, a subsidiary of the joint venture between FAZ and Fiege. This transaction was structured as an asset deal and was highly complex. The whole process lasted 10 months from kick-off to the signing, not least due to the number of legal relationships between the company on the one hand and PostNL Group companies as well as third parties on the other.

PostNL decided to increase investment in its nation-wide business with corporate clients and to buy all the shares of Hermes Logistik Gruppe in National PostCon GmbH & Co. KG, a joint venture of PostNL and the Hermes Logistik Gruppe.

Together with PostNL’s Senior Legal Counsel Jeroen Snaaijer, Bird & Bird’s team has provided comprehensive advice to PostNL and its German subsidiaries both in the review of its strategy in Germany as well as on both M&A transactions. Among Bird & Bird’s lawyers the following have been particularly involved: partner Alfred Herda and senior associate Dr. Stefanie Orttmann. They were assisted by associate Dr. Peter Coenen (all Corporate / M&A, Düsseldorf) as well as a cross-practice team containing lawyers from commercial, antitrust and EU law, employment, public procurement, IT and privacy law, as well as restructuring.