DHL has agreed to sell its UK domestic parcel business to Home Delivery Network (HDN). HDN will assume all employees and facilities of the business.
“This will enable domestic parcel customers of both companies to benefit from a wider range of services,” say the companies. The two have also entered into a wider ‘preferred supplier’ relationship which will see HDN continuing to use the DHL Domestic brand in the short term.
“We are confident that this move will help us improve the overall quality of our international services while at the same time enhancing domestic parcel services for UK customers,” explains Ken Allen, CEO of DHL Express. “The agreement allows us to concentrate our resources on further growing the profitable express businesses.”
The agreement is limited to DHL’s domestic parcel business, also known as the Day Definite Domestic business, which concentrates on shipments that are delivered within the UK on a certain day rather than at a specific time of the next day. DHL Express will now focus its full attention on its Time Definite International and Same Day express services, both internationally and throughout the UK DHL’s Servicepoint facilities. The company’s online offering DHLitNow is unaffected by the move.
“It was important to us to divest our own parcel business to a company that we can trust,” says Ken McCall, CEO of DHL Express UK. “HDN is a strong and well-respected player in the B2C field and thus ideally complements the B2B focused services we currently offer. This will certainly create an unrivaled service for all UK domestic parcel customers. We remain committed to ensuring our domestic parcel customers receive DHL’s usual high standards of service and will work closely with HDN to ensure a smooth transition process. It will absolutely be business as usual for these customers.”
DHL plans to transfer its UK day definite parcel operations to HDN by the end of the first quarter of 2010. The business currently employs some 4,700 people and operates five hubs as well as 71 Service centres spread throughout the UK.
