I am interested to hear any opinions about the proposed Royal Mail floatation. Will it remain a croc and sink or will it open at a premium and fly?

Before anyone mentions it, I do know how to spell "what", its just that I'm not properly awake yet!

Send your application in now they should receive it within 3 months..lol.just recieved a post card from SAfrica posted 7 th Jan....took threee months to get here..I supppose the fault lies with the sender who gave it to the tour guide to post and I guess he just sat on it for a while..!

we lost a cheque in the post that was ment for the broker,first time thats ever happened ,plus are post now comes when thay feel like ,,arround 2.00 pm is about the norm ,a float for me any day,,archie norman as ceo that will do.

Question is, would things improve after a float? Usually the first thing that happens is massive redundancies in order to reduce costs. Do postal services make money in other countroes? I don't know.

Hard to say if it would bring an improvement...some private companies
in the public sector have done a great job and others have proved that
private profit driven companies based in public sector work
do not always mean a great service.

However, companies like Business Post does deliver a great deal and
service (although I'm sure someone somewhere probably disagrees!) so the
asnwer could be for Royal Mail to be a private concern BUT not with a
'written in stone' monopoly, in other words others should be able to
compete or bid, be that on a regional basis or literally like the
lottery situation where the company only has the rights to run it for
x number of years, after which time they can lose out to someone else.

Who should decide? The actual postal service users, so Joe public and
companies, there could be a voting system so if you felt the service
given during the period was rubbish, you could cast a vote for a different
company.

OR let's have an open market, with 2 or 3 different postal companies
each with their own postboxes,logistical systems and delivery staff,
set the postage cost at a definite level and as consumers we could decide
if we post our letters in box A or B - we could choose who we use.

Of course this means two lots of postmen a day potentially delivering but
I'm sure the average household dog wont mind the challenge!!

Lands End to John O'Groats for 22p. What private firm will want that? All they want is London to London or other big cities.
The PO delivers hundreds of millions of letters daily, so you have to expect a few million a year to go missing......unfortunately, with 200,000 employees, some are going to be dishonest.....especially since postal workers are not well paid.
I think the Royal Mail is OK, and privatisation will just mean people paying more for choice but not improvement. If I'm realistic, 99% of mail can take a week for all I care...it's mainly rubbish anyway, so keep it cheap and cheerful. There's special delivery available if I want to send anything important.
Some public companies are best left alone. Along with the PO I would include the NHS, the BBC and grammar schools.
What we really want to get rid of are local authorities who charge thousands a year for their low quality service. The Post Office costs me only pennies, with below inflation price rises, and I have a daily service. The council costs mount exponentially, and I get a load of overpaid councillors sitting in pointless meetings pretending they're important and a weekly refuse collection. I know which I think is value for money!

Very true Zoltar,

Why does the British government want to privatise for privatisations sake? The PO belongs to the public anyway, has anyone asked if the public want it sold? What was the big problem in funding Royal Mail. OK it cost 2bn a year but in order to make it profitable you had to sack 30,000 employees, so now don't you just spend the 2bn on unemployment benefit? Besides it works (or sorry did work before MP's started tinkering through Post Comm and Postwatch, since when does one company have 2 watchdogs watching it??? Looks to me like Royal Mail is been set up to fail so that the public say it's a good thing that it is sold. Did you know that the British Railways were the most efficient in europe before they were privatised, I very much doubt they are anymore??!!
Damn it, I'm going to write to my MP

I can't believe I started this thread in 2004, had to look at it to confirm it actually was me. Still relevant 9 years on, amazing.

I've just registered and I've told Sid.

I shall register but will make up my mind when I see the prospectus and offer price. Just don't get the feeling that postal services are money spinners. Lots of competition cherry picking the profitable services.

I'm staying with UK mail group.

Any idea of the float price..

..I was thinking 120p/130p..

Can there be a float and strike at Royal Mail? The government's announcement of its intention to float Royal Mail on the stock exchange is not irreversible, avoid.

Today the Government announced its intention to sell off Royal Mail.

This might be good news for the bankers but it is bad news for Royal Mail customers. 127,000 people have signed the petition to save the Royal Mail and protect its services. Last week the petition was taken to Downing Street.

There is still time to make our voices heard and protect Royal Mail services.

Please take a moment to send an urgent email to your MP today to tell them why you want to protect the Royal Mail.

Below are some suggestions to include in your email.

Thank you for your support,

P.S. If you are on Twitter tweet your support for the campaign.

Some suggestions for email to your MP:

I am writing to express my concerns over plans to privatise Royal Mail.
The elderly, people in rural areas and small businesses will be particularly hard hit by the inevitable price rises and service reductions that will follow this privatisation.
Recent polling shows that 70% of the British public oppose this unnecessary privatisation.
Royal Mail is a successful public sector enterprise. This is an unnecessary and ultimately political privatisation.

120/130 mitzy that would be nice,could be looking at £2 i would of said.
Count me in !

why is it bad for customers?
for that matter, why do the unions reckon it's bad for them?

has privatised gas or water been bad for the customer?
in many ways no, though it's impossible to determine whether pricing would have been any less if left in state ownership

has privatised rail been bad for the customer?
on balance, probably yes, but i don't recollect it was much chop before, and heaven knows what fun the militant unions would have had

You are far to immature to respond to, particularly on this subject.

is that so?
you mean you totally disagree? ..... well that's your prerogative, but there's no need to be so immature in your response

i wonder if there will be any increase in thieving once the mail is privatised?

btw, weren't the docks state-owned many years ago?
if so, privatising those has been magical on almost all fronts

Yes, it is so, you really must get some help for your own good and people around you, I'm assuming that there are people around you of course.

what a wondrous intelligent response from you stan, but then i think you're a close buddy of findus, so i shouldn't be surprised