London
Misdelivered: International Distribution Services (IDS), the owner of Royal Mail, is urging Ofcom, the communications regulator, to speed up its review of the postal service’s plans to modernise as the company fends off a potential £3.1bn hostile takeover by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, says James Warrington in The Telegraph. IDS rejected an offer from Kretinsky, whose company, EP Group, is IDS’s largest shareholder with a 27.5% stake. The takeover offer “significantly undervalues IDS and is highly opportunistic”, said IDS’s chairman Keith Williams. Fund manager Redwheel, IDS’s third-largest shareholder with a 6.65% stake, backs the reform plans. Kretinsky, who also owns stakes in Sainsbury’s and West Ham Football Club, was put through a national security review in 2022 after he increased his holding in IDS. He has until 15 May to make a new bid, which would probably be examined by regulators.
IDS wants to reform the universal service obligation, which requires Royal Mail to deliver letters six days a week. It plans to cut nearly 1,000 jobs and save £300m a year by reducing deliveries of second-class post
